


The Unpaid Debt

by Jillypups



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bronnaery, F/M, Renlas, Revenge, Rickeen, Romance, sansan, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 19:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 137,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2281230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/pseuds/Jillypups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Private Investigator Ned Stark is gunned down in his own vehicle alongside wife Cat and eldest son Robb, whose last words before he succumbs to his wounds include “Lannisters.”</p><p>Ned’s children Sansa and Rickon, along with the help of Sandor Clegane and Shireen Baratheon, set out to solve this mystery for themselves, and to ensure that the Lannisters pay every last debt they owe.</p><p>This is as hot and heavy on the SanSan as it is on the Rickeen, unlike the last like four of my fics, just a head's up. :) </p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/95860453113/the-unpaid-debt-private-investigator-ned-stark">Inspiration here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nashville

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElixirBB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElixirBB/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114790621118/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-1-feels)

Sansa watches as the guards open the door to let her youngest brother out into the visitor’s courtyard, a descriptive that makes her wonder at their sense of humor. ‘Courtyard’ brings to her mind moss-covered fountains and shadowed flagstone, ivy-choked archways and secluded corners meant for reading or kissing or gossiping. They remind her of the fantasy trips to Europe she planned with Jeyne in college, when they’d sit curled up with mugs of tea, thinking up stories of finding fairy stones and eating perfect English scones, of running their fingers along the stone bridges of Venice and standing breathless at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The visitor’s courtyard at the Tennessee DOC, however, is a concrete slab with picnic tables and ashtrays everywhere, separated from the exercise yard by two layers of chain link fence and coils of razor wire.

 Though she’s come to grips with the fact that her brother, the youngest of them all, is behind bars for armed robbery, the sight of him being escorted out in the violent orange of a prison uniform adds to the sorrow in her heart. He looks as miserable as she likely does, if the way she feels has anything to say about it, and though Rickon is only halfway between the door and her, he opens his arms. She used to bathe her little brother before she left for college in California, and now he’s the one offering comfort to her, his lanky frame open and waiting for her as he walks towards her. Her eyes fill with tears and before she can help herself, she is sobbing, even here in front of these other prisoners and their tight-lipped, drawn looking families, and she quickly closes the distance between them, burying her head against his shoulder as they wrap their arms around each other.

“I’m so sorry, Sansa,” he says, his voice distant and muffled against the hair on her neck¸ and she feels the long, strong trunk of his body contract under the weight of his shuddering breath.

“Sorry for what?” she asks, lifting a hand up over his shoulder to wipe her nose against the long sleeve of her hoodie; she is normally a smart dresser amongst her peers, but coming to prison in order to share the details of their parents’ deaths with her incarcerated brother didn’t seem a good enough reason to dress up, and so she wears clothes that are a half step up from pajamas. She hasn’t even bothered to unpack her makeup kit, and she has been here in Nashville four days, already.

“Sorry because I can’t be there, out there, with you while all this shit goes down.” He squeezes her tightly, his un-brushed hair rubbing against her cheek, and she is grateful that prison has seemed to quash his desire to shave his head anymore, lest he be mistaken here for a neo Nazi.

“One more month, Ric, then you will be. Believe me, there will be plenty of stuff waiting for you,” she says, and then they sit together at one of the plastic picnic tables to go over everything she already told him in the email she sent before hopping on a plane to come collect the bodies of their parents. It is painful to go over again but regardless of what he did to land himself in here, he deserves to hear it all, face to face, from family, from someone who can hold his hand as he cries, if he cries at all anymore.

She is not surprised when he is dry eyed, however, even after she recites from memory what detective Podrick Payne told her over the phone: Ned and Cat Stark suffered fatal injuries resulting from a car wreck, the car wreck that landed their eldest brother Robb into a coma. There were, however, some signs of foul play; five of them, to be exact, bullet holes from a .45 semiautomatic: one apiece in their parents’ skulls, and three that went through Robb’s body from shoulder to hip, likely because he fell across the back seat, trying to escape as the shots were fired. Her littlest brother rests his elbows on his knees and his head in the palms of his hands as she talks, and her voice sounds robotic to her as it clinically, coldly lays out the details of their parents’ death. _No,_ she thinks. _Their murder, Robb’s_ attempted _murder._

“Do they have any idea who’d do this?” he asks at last. His voice sounds so _heavy,_ and he looks so _exhausted_ , as if he has not slept in days, and maybe he hasn’t. He’s had days to mull it over, to let it wriggle into his brain and grow fat and wicked, all consuming like a tumor. Sansa suppresses a cringe at the imagery. Her thoughts are frequently full of such things, now, ever since that phone call, the one that interrupted her morning ritual of coffee and reading on the little balcony her tiny apartment afforded her. The call that ruined her, that ruined everything.

“They think it was a botched carjacking. That maybe the robber or whatever saw dad’s handgun and then got nervous and started shooting.”

“Bullshit. Do they even know what he does for a living?”

 _‘Did’, little brother,_ she thinks. _‘Do they even know what he_ did ** _._** _’_ Sansa sighs, nods. “They do, and they say being a private detective is coincidental, and if it really were like, revenge or something for getting nabbed by him, then they’d have waited until he was alone. Less risk to just kill him when he was by himself, instead of with mom and Robb, too.”

Rickon sighs and sits back up, lights a cigarette, hunching his shoulders and cupping his hand around the flame. He looks at her after exhaling over his other shoulder, away from her to keep it out of her face and hair, though she wouldn’t half mind a cigarette herself, after everything that’s happened. She hasn’t smoked since college, when a cigarette and beer felt like luscious scandal. She wishes she were 18 again, remembers brushing her teeth and washing her hair before coming back home from high school parties so her parents wouldn’t smell it on her and scold her for an hour straight. She wishes she could be scolded now, would smoke Rickon’s entire pack just to see her mother’s finger wagging in her face one more time. Sansa bites back another sob, but it’s too late, the dam has broken, and she folds her arms on the picnic table and rests her head on them to hide her crying.

“Jesus, Rickon, I can’t believe they’re gone. I can’t believe mom and dad are gone,” she says, and she hears him exhale smoke before scooting closer to her and slinging an arm across her shoulders. “And Robb, oh Rickon, it’s horrible. He looks- It’s- He looks _gray._ Like he’s a shadow. I’m so scared he’s not going to make it.”

He holds her as she babbles into the pocket of space her folded arms provide, and it sounds like a wet, salty sort of echo to her ears, her breath hitching between sobs and words. Her little brother, always a withdrawn, troubled kid even before meeting all those thugs in high school, does his best to comfort her, and while he’s clumsy when he pats her back at first, it softens when his hand makes soothing circles across her shoulder blades. Eventually the flood of tears and words subside and she is able to sit up, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. _Mom would have brought Kleenex. Mom would never use her clothes as a tissue,_ she thinks, _but now mom is gone, and it’s only me._

Sansa excuses herself from the table to get some water, crossing the small, laughably named courtyard to the water fountain and sweeps her hair over her shoulder, holding it with one hand as she depresses the button for water with the other. As she drinks her eyes lift and she looks out into the exercise yard where a handful of men work out and twice as many stand around smoking cigarettes. She straightens and hugs herself as she watches the interactions, the handshakes, the men who group together versus those who stand alone. One man in particular seems the most isolated, and even from this far away she can see how tall he is, how much larger he is than the others, and she wonders if that has something to do with his solitude. He turns towards her and catches her looking in at them and she immediately looks at the concrete beneath her sneakers, eyes widening in embarrassment over getting caught staring at them, as if they were captured creatures at the sorriest of zoos.

“Why don’t you take a picture instead, eh, girl?” He shouts, and his voice is a bitter-edged thing, tinged with some accent she can hear even from this far away, and it wounds her already fragile heart. Sansa turns on her heel and heads back to her brother, head bowed and cheeks red from the confrontation.

“God, I can’t wait for you to get out of here,” she says when she sits back down beside her brother, and he gives a sullen laugh, leaning over to stub out his cigarette in the cylindrical cement ashtray just to the side of their table.

“You and me both. Have you told Bran and Arya, yet? Are they coming home? Shit, it just hit me, man, is there going to be a funeral? I mean, if there is I’m gonna miss it. You can’t wait a month for that, can you? I mean, do they- who- where would the- where would they be kept? Um, you know, mom and dad?”

Sansa winces at the morbidity of the topic, but it’s a necessary evil. “They wanted to be cremated,” she sighs, closing her eyes briefly at the memory. She never thought she’d read her parents’ wills at 29. “So that’s what’s happening. We can do a memorial or whatever for their ashes. Bran is trying to scrounge the money to get a flight and Arya has yet to return any of my calls. I don’t even know if she has reception where she is.” Their sister and her boyfriend are currently backpacking through all the national parks. It makes Sansa feel sick to her stomach, the idea of gallivanting around the country without even knowing your parents are dead and your brother fights for his life in a hospital bed. _I’ll call her again on the drive home._

“He can afford to study overseas, he should be able to find the money for a fucking flight,” Rickon says with a bite to his voice, and Sansa sighs.

“You had the chance to go to college too, but you messed that up for yourself and you know it. You barely even graduated high school, for God’s sake. It’s not Bran’s fault that he got loans and grants for it.”

Rickon mutters incoherently under his breath and for a few moments their conversation stagnates. She looks at her hands lying there in her lap and wonders if they’re strong enough to hold this family together, and then she gets frustrated. Her hands tighten into fists on her legs.

“You know, our only _other_ brother is laying in a coma right now, Rickon. I think you need to let go of some of the, the _bullshit_ that takes over with you, okay? In like a week and a half I’ve been called by the cops telling me my parents are dead, I’ve booked and taken a flight from San Diego all the way over here so I can collect my parents’ ashes, visit my little brother in prison and sit by my big brother in a hospital, hoping he doesn’t _die._ So, you know what, yeah, I say you _definitely_ need to let go of the bullshit, because I need your hands free to help me hold up this nightmare that has become my life. I can’t do it alone. I _won’t_ do it alone.” She is surprised that no more tears fall, but she supposes that those are in reserve for family, and not for herself. When she looks up at him, Rickon is staring at her with widened eyes and raised eyebrows, and her anger sputters and stalls for a moment, he looks so comical with the fresh, unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his shocked expression.

“Well, damn, Sansa,” is all he says, and she nods curtly, just once, knowing she’s gotten through to him. For the rest of their visit she tells him how it has been, staying at their old family house on Belmont, with no one else there but memories and ghosts. She tells him about the cup of cold coffee she found on the little kitchen table, its drinker fully intending to return home to finish it, and how she flung it across the room and broke a pane of glass in the French doors leading to the backyard. In turn, he tells her that he took an English class online and got all A’s in a direct contrast to how he fared in high school. He tells her how he earned major street cred – _prison cred,_ she sighs to herself, though not without an inward, sad smile – by beating the shit out of a guy who tried shanking his cellmate. He tells her how much he misses the sound of their father’s voice, having refused all communications with both parents after Ned Stark refused to get his lawyer friends to help Rickon’s case in court, letting him suffer his own consequences.

“I would let them lock me up in here for a hundred years if it meant they could be alive again,” he says. “I’m going to kill whoever did this to us,” he vows, and there it is, the tremble of his chin, the welling of tears in his eyes, and now it is Sansa’s turn to rub little circles of comfort over his back, again and again as he cries on her shoulder, shoulders hunched to keep the other inmates from divining any secret emotion or pain from him.

 

His cellmate gets out two weeks before he’s due for release, and the night before he leaves they sit side by side in the cafeteria, shoveling tasteless shit-for-food into their mouths.

“What’s up, Fall Guy?” Boros says, the asshole just standing there with his tray in his hand, and as he has done every time that nickname is thrown in his face, Rickon just bows his head and ignores it. _You tell_ one _motherfucker you took the fall and you get a fucking nickname for the rest of your time._

“Fuck off, you fat cunt,” Sandor says, and it almost sounds amiable coming from him. He’s lighter, his eyes are brighter, and Rickon can practically smell the freedom emanating from him. The man rarely smiles; he admitted a few months ago that it makes the scarred side of his face feel too tight, too wrinkled and foreign. But he grins when he tells off Boros, the burned skin stretching shiny with a mess and tangle of cords and sinewy half-healed skin; it’s a view Rickon has gotten used to, but the sight is apparently so off-putting that the heavyset Boros blanches and retreats. Sandor chuckles to himself and stabs the brown-gray slab of meat on his tray with his fork, sawing at it with his dull knife.

“Sounds like someone is excited to go home,” Rickon says, slugging back his tap water, wishing it were beer. _In two weeks it will be._

“Home,” snorts Sandor with a shake of his head. “Wherever the fuck that is. I’ve been in here a year, kid. I’ve no apartment, no family and no woman, unless I spend a small fortune for a whore to spread her legs, and I’ve neither the cash nor the desire for an STD. But at least I’ll be out of here, eh?”

“My parents were murdered,” Rickon says bluntly. He’s not told anyone here, but he thinks he will explode if he cannot tell _anyone_ , and Sandor is the only friend he’s made in this shithole. “My brother’s in a coma. So, you know. It could be worse.”

“Aye,” Sandor says, nodding soberly after sitting still for a few moments, processing this new information. Finally he chews his tough meat and swallows, lifts his head and looks at Rickon. “I’m sorry, mate. That’s tough fucking luck right there,” and it’s simultaneously the most callous reaction he could think of and the kindest thing he’s ever heard Sandor say, and that makes him laugh. The scarred man literally recoils from him in surprise and confusion, and that makes Rickon laugh even harder.   

“I’m going to miss you, man,” he says, wiping at his face, though there is nothing there. _Better laughter than tears in here_. “If you still need a place to stay when I’m out in two weeks, you come find me.” He has already given his dead parents’ address to Sandor, in case he needs it, and he half hopes Sandor will take him up on the offer. There is a fear inside Rickon, that the world will not invite him once he’s out, and though he does not say it out loud in so many words, it leaks out of him in gestures such as these. He spent his entire life shutting the world out, and now the thought of the world doing the same to him keeps him up at night.

“I couldn’t,” Sandor says after recovering himself with a shake of his head over Rickon’s antics. “I’m the one who owes _you,_ you daft bastard. I’d be dead or covered in even more scars if you hadn’t stopped Meryn from stabbing the shit out of me.”

“No big deal,” Rickon shrugs. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”

“Well, _now_ I would,” Sandor says, and they both grin at that.

 

She has spent every daylight hour at Robb’s side since she visited Rickon a week ago, and the only visible progress between the two of them has been the decline in her appearance. Sansa has always taken good care of herself; after graduating from the UCSD she got a job as a paralegal in a prestigious law firm, spent her hard earned money in pricy boutiques and on weekly manicures and pedicures, only bought organic and in general immersed herself in the southern California lifestyle. In the face of bereavement and mourning, these inclinations have slipped to the wayside. She has showered only a handful of times though she has been back in town for three weeks, she wears yoga pants and shelf-bra tanks instead of dark fitted jeans and silk blouses, and has eaten McDonald’s every night this week. There are broken shards of coffee mug still strewn on the kitchen floor in her parents’ house, the stain of coffee still streaked across the tile, and she has neither the desire nor the energy to clean it in order to cook there, to cook where her mother used to feed them all snacks after school.

“I um, I’ve been cleaning out your old room,” she says, staring at Robb’s forearm, ignoring the IVs, because looking at his face, all slack jawed and gray and just so obviously _not Robb_ is too much to handle. Chewing her lip, Sansa gingerly takes his limp hand in hers. “I can’t believe all three of you boys slept up there. It seemed so big, when we were kids, but now that attic just feels like it’s trying to choke me. It’s so small. God, Robb, we were all so little then, weren’t we?

“Anyways. Bran is totally trying to cross the pond to come see you. I told him I’d give him my credit card number but he’s determined to do it himself. You know how he is. I um. Oh, Robb. I can’t find Arya, she’s not answering any texts and she hasn’t replied to any of my emails. Her phone goes right to voicemail so I assume they’re in some stupid, shitty corner of the unmapped world smoking a joint with some field guide. She has no idea. Just living it up, thinking life is waiting here for her, when there’s no life left. Not at home, unless you count me, I guess, but I’m not much. Not now. Not anymore.

“Oh, um, Rickon’s getting out soon, and I have no idea what he’s going to do for a job. When you wake up, you’re going to have to teach him all the stuff dad taught you. Nothing like a PI with a criminal record, right?” She laughs, and it’s thin and tinny and hollow and sad, and after only a few seconds she just stops, because he’s not even listening, and she suddenly hates the sound of her voice.

“Ssssss,” Robb says, and Sansa’s head snaps up like there is a string tied to the back of it and someone has yanked it. “Ssster.” Her heart stops, because he’s saying _sister,_ she knows it.

“Yes, Robb, I’m here. I’m here, honey, say something. Are you okay?” She thinks about calling a nurse, but the selfish, selfish girl in her says _No, let him speak to me, let me have a moment with my brother_ , and so all she does is grip his hand in both of hers, giving it the smallest of shakes. “Robb?”

He sits bolt upright, scaring a sharp gasp out of her, and suddenly his hand is clenching hers like a vise, so powerfully it hurts, but she dares not wriggle free from it. His eyes bulge and his mouth is open in a desperate pant for breath, and Sansa wants to shout for her parents, but she hasn’t the strength of voice to reach them where they are, now. The dinging of various machines nearly deafens her, but when he speaks, she can hear him.

“Lannisters,” Robb says, and his voice is like a rake dragging through gravel. “Lannisters. Lannisters. Call Renly, dad. Call him. Dad? Mom? Mom. Mother,” he says, and there are tears coursing down Sansa’s face as she watches in mute agony, terror and sadness filling the room like water fills a well.

“Robb? Robb, honey, it’s me, it’s Sansa, it’s your _sister_. Robb?” She stands, still gripping his hand, or still in the grip of his hand, either or neither. “ _Robb_!” And now the nurses come, a doctor too, but her big brother simply collapses and drops back to the pillow, as if the air or the life or the love that held him upright has fled, dissipated, turned to nothingness, because even Sansa knows what a flat line sounds like, so she covers it up with a scream, and she screams, and screams, and screams.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Nashville - Liz Phair


	2. Black Out Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [PIcset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114797686663/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-2-blackout-days)

“Thanks for picking me up,” he says, loitering by the passenger side of their mother’s dark blue SUV, knowing better than to ask his sister if he can finish his cigarette inside. It’s a gray day for September and it fits his mood perfectly, though the humidity from the suggested storm clings to him, makes him feel crowded, as claustrophobic as his cell did. His family used to make him feel that way, but now there’s half as many of them as there used to be, and he does not know what to do with that knowledge, so he shoves it away.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Rickon has a thousand answers for her, things like drugs and suspension and shoplifting and assaults and running away and obviously prison time, but he knows what she means, so he doesn’t answer her. She unlocks the car and gets into the driver’s seat, turning over the engine, and through the light tint of the passenger window, with her red hair twisted up in a messy bun, she almost looks like their mother. It shakes him but then she lowers the window with a roll of her eyes. “Just get in. It doesn’t matter, not anymore,” and for the first time in his life, Rickon smokes in his mother’s car, and it hurts his heart because everything has changed. He used to pray to God and the devil alike for changes to his life, and now he wonders if his prayers were answered in the worst twist of ways, and he wonders which one of them did the answering.

She stops at Kroger, complaining ridiculously that she feels fat from all the fast food she’s been eating, and they drift like wraiths down the aisles and through the produce, and he wants to laugh at how girly all of her food choices are, but he doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the joy to do it, even though he walks free now after over six months in prison, and that reminds him. He walks off, leaving Sansa to ponder the benefits of quinoa over rice, and returns with three six packs of beer, one under his arm, the other two in his hands. She glances at him, gaze dropping to the beer, but she says nothing, and he’s grateful. He turned 21 in prison. This will be his first legal night of drinking, and he intends to get drunk.

She cooks for him that night, his big sister, and to repay the kindness he sweeps up the broken mug and squats down with some 409, spritzing it along the path of coffee stain as the chicken sizzles in the skillet. There’s a glass of wine by the stove, a bottle of beer on the counter, and they drink together in silence, here in this tomb of a house, this crypt of empty beds and unread magazines on the coffee table.

“Robb said some stuff before he died,” she says, just out of the blue, as they sit on the floor in the little TV room, eating their dinner. The TV is on but they neither of them look its way, and at her words he reaches over, nearly falling onto his side as he stretches, pushes the power button and makes the screen go black. He sits back up and swigs from his third beer, looking at her.

“What do you mean?” She did not visit him after Robb died but she called him, sobbing hysterically, more frantic after their brother’s death than their parents, which was understandable. Robb gave them hope, clinging to life in his coma, and hope is the cruelest of pranksters. Through her sobs over the phone, little of what was said was coherent, but he knows for certain that she never mentioned any last words. Fleetingly he wonders if Robb mentioned him, but there is that hope again, so Rickon quashes it down before it can torture him further.

“Well, he sort of sat right up and started saying ‘Lannisters,’ whatever that means.” She artfully slices off a bite of chicken, dainty even though she sits at the end of the coffee table in a pair of pajama pants and a flannel shirt, and brings it to her mouth. She chews, swallows, chases it with an oversized swallow of white wine, and finally she looks up at him. He frowns and shakes his head, mystified.

“What the fuck is a Lannister?” He asks and she shrugs a shoulder before spearing a piece of broccoli. “Is that it? He just said ‘Lannisters’ and died? That’s- what is that? I mean what the fuck?”

“I don’t know, Ric, God, don’t get all pissy with _me._ I watched my brother die, okay? I was all by myself, and I watched him go. Like a balloon being popped, just, pfft.” She jabs the air with her fork before shoving the broccoli in her mouth and dropping the fork to her plate, chewing angrily.

“No need to shove that in my face. I would’ve been there if I could and you know it, Sansa,” he says, hacking into his chicken breast with his knife. She’s a good cook and it’s perfectly seasoned, perfectly wonderful as his first home cooked meal in half a year, but the topic of conversation has soured it. He is more interested in attacking something than eating, so he cuts the rest of it into bite sized pieces.

“I’m not throwing _anything_ in your face, bub, it is what it is.  You were in prison for some stupid bravado bullshit while I was dealing with all this stuff on my own.” There have been tears aplenty between the two of them, but now there’s anger, and _this_ is a method of self-expression that Rickon knows well, and he is more than up for the challenge.

“Don’t take it out on me. Last I checked there are two other siblings for you to bitch at and blame, okay? Bran is sitting in France with his thumb up his ass while Arya’s on a fucking pleasure cruise God knows where. Yes, I was in prison, but where the hell are they, huh? Where’s the familial support from those two? Let’s hope _they’re_ not dead so you’re not just left with the fuck-up, huh?” Pushing his plate away he stands abruptly with beer in hand and turns his back on his sister, stalking out of the room to the front door, wrenching it open, kicking the screen door and walking through. He slams the door and lets the screen slap shut, but somehow there is no pleasure in those sounds, not like there had been when he was seventeen.

Rickon sits on the porch swing with a sigh, head sagging back until it rests on the top of the wood slats, and he stares at the porch’s ceiling, rocking himself back and forth with his heels. He remembers falling asleep in his mother’s lap on this swing, remembers kissing girls on this swing, remembers his father’s lectures and speeches on this swing, advice that Rickon never took. Unshed tears burn in his eyes and he clenches his jaw, determined not to cry, but they slide down his temples and into his hair no matter how tightly he squeezes shut his eyes.

The wooden front door opens with a click, and then the screen door opens with its usual creak. Rickon sniffs and clears his throat, lifting his head and wiping his eyes, and then looks up at her. She has filled her wine glass nearly to the brim and it makes him laugh through his tears. She smiles shyly and chuckles at herself with a shrug of her shoulders, sits beside him on the swing. He holds out his beer bottle and she carefully taps her wine glass against it before taking a lingering sip and sitting back.

“I don’t want to fight. Not after everything. I don’t want us yelling at each other. We need to be here for each other. Until Bran and Arya come back, we’re all we have. I love you. You’re my brother and I love you.” He puts his arm around her and she tips her head until it rests on his shoulder with a shaking sigh that she tries to drown with another swallow of wine.

“I love you too. I’m sorry, Sansa. I’m, I just- I can’t believe this. It’s so weird, and horrible, and then Robb’s last words are nonsense and you know, why couldn’t he have said he loved us? Why couldn’t he have told us who _did_ this?”

“Well, there is more. Not much, but there’s more. He called out for dad and mom, but he also said ‘Call Renly, dad.’”

“Who the hell is Renly?” There is one mystery after another, and it’s starting to confuse the hell out of him. He drinks from his beer, wishing it tasted better, wishing it tasted more like freedom than it did a funeral.

“I don’t know, but that’s what he said. And he said, specifically, for dad to _call_.”

“’Call Renly,’ huh?”

“Mm hmm.”

Rickon drains his beer and sighs. “Well then, we know what to do.”

“What?” Sansa’s glass of wine is half empty, she’s slurring, and he chuckles.

“We call Renly.”

 

It is a drunken scavenger hunt after their father’s cell phone provides no help, and she’s thankful for the layer of numbness the wine provides her as she sits on her mother’s side of the bed, sifting through the contents of her nightstand. Cat loved to read in bed, and Sansa discovers that she also enjoyed doing the crossword; there are several of them there and three pencils with teeth marks pressed into their yellow sides. She runs her finger along them, feeling the indentations, and then she brings one of them to her mouth, kissing it softly.

“Jesus Christ, condoms,” Rickon says, snapping her out of her reverie. He is rummaging through their father’s nightstand, and Sansa has to laugh when her brother’s long arm draws back as forcefully as if he’d just touched fire.

“Hey, it just shows they still loved each other that way. That’s a good thing,” she smiles, lifting her glass for a drink. Rickon chucks the box at her and she shrieks, wiping the wine from her lower lip as she shoves the condoms back to him.

“That’s the only interesting thing in here,” he says with a sigh, twisting open a fresh beer, standing up and going to the roll top desk in the corner of the room. Their father was not necessarily a mysterious man, but he was a private one. Rather than have his desk in the living room or TV area, he chose to have in here in their bedroom, and so when Rickon sits at the desk he is essentially seated in Ned Stark’s office. With his back towards Sansa, for a moment she sees her father sitting there, though Rickon’s shoulders are still broad and have yet to bend under the weight of mortgages, bills and raising five children, and she smiles sadly. She dips her finger in her wine and traces the edge of the glass, the high vibration filling the room. Rickon glances at her over his shoulder and chuckles.

“I always thought it was so cool when you and Robb would do that,” he says, referencing holiday dinners when Sansa and Robb were permitted diluted wine. She grins impulsively.

“Remember that one Thanksgiving when Robb got you drunk?”

“Yes,” Rickon says, turning back to sift through the papers and documents in a desk drawer. She cannot see his face, but she hears the smile in his voice. “I was ten, and it was the weirdest feeling I’d ever experienced. Although it’s feeling pretty good right now,” he says, waving his beer bottle over his shoulder.

“Yeah, no kidding,” she murmurs, licking the wine from her finger. “So is there a girl in your life, Ric?”

He snorts and shakes his head, she can see it from the bed where she still sits, a leg curled under her and the other dangling off the edge. “No. There was this one chick I was sort of seeing, but she bailed when the judge banged the gavel. You? Any handsome princes to write about in your journal?” He closes the drawer and opens another.

She laughs, remembering the black and white notebook she carried around in her pretentious poet days, head bent as she scribbled down nonsense and empty headed dreams. He’s more correct than he knows; she called more than one crush ‘prince’ back in middle school. “No, not really. I mean, I was seeing this one guy, Harry? Over in Point Loma. Nice eyes, great hair. But it sort of fizzled out, and then, you know, the mom and dad thing, and he didn’t even really comfort me when I called him. I called two people, Harry and Jeyne, and only one of them gave a shit that my folks died.”

“Men are _such_ pigs,” he says with comical emphasis, and despite the sorrow of their situation, she laughs again. She’s drunk, and she has missed her baby brother. He takes out a few file folders and pauses, lifting out an old photo. “Hey, come here, check this out,” he says, turning in the wooden swivel chair to face her, wobbling a bit when he stands. It’s past 11pm and he’s already deep into his second six pack, and she’s already opened a second bottle of white, so no wonder he is unsteady on his feet. Rickon sits on the foot of the bed and passes her an 8x10 photograph.

“Oh wow,” she says, gazing down at seven smiling faces. They are standing before the Grand Canyon, its majesty yawning wide and ancient behind them, and the sun in their faces make everyone squint, sweaty, tanned, dusty, so happy. Rickon is six in the photo, before his troubles began, and their father has his arm around their mother’s shoulders. Cat’s hands rest on Arya’s shoulders as she stands in front of her. Robb, handsome, tall Robb is giving Sansa a pair of bunny ears, and Bran and Rickon salute as if they are soldiers. “Gee, thanks, Robb,” Sansa smiles. She has never seen this photo and had no idea he did that.

“Ehh, you were so stuck up back then, you probably deserved it.”

“I was not!” She chucks the photo at him like a Frisbee, flopping back on their mother’s pillow, and he catches it easily, grinning as he gets up, sits on their dad’s desk and drinks from his beer. He finds a pen and clicks the nib in and out, over and over again.

“You totally were,” he says. “You were a ballerina in nothing but AP classes and the stick was so far up your butt I think it helped your posture. Which is perfect, by the way,” he says with a grin, and Sansa can’t help but giggle, and she realizes she is _very_ drunk.

“Well you were no ray of sunshine yourself, buddy. About three years after that picture was taken you turned into hell on feet. And let me tell you, in middle school you were the _worst._ There was no getting through to you.”

He shrugs, still grinning, but there is a serious timbre to his voice. “Who was going to try? Perfect Robb was too busy pretending he was dad, Arya was in her metal phase for like ten years, and then Bran with his fucking Nietzsche and Sartre,” he says, mispronouncing both names.  “So, you know, where does little brother fit in? Dad’s out working all hours of the day and night to make shit work and ends meet or whatever, and mom’s running around going to Robb’s football games and your dance lessons, she’s talking for hours with Bran over fucking philosophy while Arya spends more time at Gendry’s than with us. You know how many times I tucked myself in? How many times I went to bed all by myself even though I shared that fucking room with two brothers?”

Sansa’s heart breaks to hear him, and she wonders how there are still pieces of it large enough to shatter even more. _Like I have a thousand tiny shards where once there was a whole one._ “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and along with a broken heart she has a sick stomach, because she never, ever knew. She and Arya shared their room downstairs by their parents’, just two steps down the hall, and now she wishes she’d crept up the stairs to her brothers’ attic bedroom, wishes she’d pulled out of herself long enough to see what was happening to the rest of the Starks. 

He bows his head a moment, nodding at her apology, and when he raises his hand to drink his beer, the arm supporting his weight slips and he slams back against the little pigeon holes and drawers along the back of Ned’s desk. “Shit, I’m drunk,” and then there’s the faint slap of a small notebook dropping from some unknown place. “Jesus,” he says when he picks it up and fans though the pages. Sansa sits up. “Holy shit,” says her brother as he thumbs through the pages, slower and slower. He goes back to the front and flicks through the pages, once, twice again, and then he stops. “Ha,” he says.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Pay dirt, that’s what. Renly B.,” he says, holding the little notebook up for her to see. “Not a lot of Renlys in this world, I’d reckon, but if dad’s got one in his book, and if Robb says it before he dies, then it’s gotta be something. Let’s call this shit.”

 

“It’s almost midnight, Rickon, we can’t just like, call the number,” his sister says. “We don’t even know this person, what are we going to say, oh hey, I’m super drunk and my family just got murdered and before my brother died he said your name?” She is slurring more and more, making grand gestures with her hands, which makes him snicker, and then there is the insanity of what she says that inflates the snickering into a full blown laugh.  _The insanity is that it’s all true,_ he thinks _. That someone can say such things and that it isn’t a joke._

“Sounds good to me,” he says as he sits tailor style on their parents’ bed, back against his father’s pillow, suddenly acutely aware that it still smells of his dad, here. He swigs from his beer, mutters  _goddammit_  when he realizes it’s empty, and stares at the number they found in the little gray notebook.

 _Renly B._ it says in their father’s frank handwriting, and he finds that his heart is beating and his hands are shaking. He pulls out the iPhone he got between the DOC and Kroger earlier that day, but then Sansa stays his hand.

“Use mom and dad’s land line. They’ll recognize the number that way. Plus you don’t want to give them your number. We have no idea who this person is.”

He makes a pistol out of his hand, aiming it at her. “Smart thinking, sister,” and puts his phone back into his pocket. Sansa stands and disappears from the bedroom, traipsing down the dark hallway and disappearing into the living room. He hears the fridge open, a dull  _thump_  and then “Ow, shit,” before she is back in the hallway, a cordless phone in her hand, a half full bottle of white wine under her arm and a beer in her other hand.

“Here,” she says, unceremoniously tossing the beer and phone onto the duvet. “I’m going to have such a headache tomorrow. I might even have one now,” but she still pours herself another glass of wine before sitting back down beside him. He twists open his beer and curses when it foams up and he is forced to pound half of it to keep the beer from getting all over the bed.  _It doesn’t matter anymore,_  his sister’s voice says in his head. Rickon squeezes shut his eyes and scrubs his face with his hand.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Am I going to do this?”

“Well _I’m_ not calling someone I’ve never met at 11:45 at night,” she says with a sigh, crossing her legs at the ankle as she leans back against the headboard. Her head bumps against it but she makes no mention of it, only sighs and closes her eyes.

“Fine, I’ll do it. Sounds like something I’d do anyways.”

“It is  _literally_  something you’re doing,” she retorts and he has to give her that one.

He lets out a shaky breath and nods. “Okay. All right. Yep.” And then he turns on the phone. He misdials twice, swearing under his breath, but on the third try he gets it. “It’s ringing,” he hisses to Sansa, who opens her eyes and sits up now, hunched over her folded legs, eyes wide. She chews on her fingernail, watching him. It rings four times and when the fifth ring is interrupted by someone answering, Rickon’s heart is in his throat and he cannot take a breath, he is so paralyzed with anxiety.

“Who the hell is this, calling so goddamn late?” It’s a woman who answers, her voice husky from irritation, and now Rickon is left to wonder, wildly, if Renly is Robb’s girlfriend or something.  _The number wouldn’t be in dad’s little book though._

“Rickon Stark,” he says, and Sansa swats him for revealing his name already. They have a very intense, very quick altercation that consists of whacks to the arm and raised eyebrows.

“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re calling so late, Rickon Stark,” she says, putting a sing-song lilt when she says his name, as if she mocks him. He stares at his sister, shrugs and shakes his head at the gumption of this woman.

“Okay, so, did I wake you?”

“Well no, but-”

“Then there’s nothing to fucking complain about,” he says, indignation rising up in him. “Are you Renly? Renly B?”

She laughs into the phone. “No, I’m not Renly. You want my uncle at 11:45 at night? Hey, Ren, you still nightclubbing these days?”

He is about to retort, but then there is a muffling sort of interference on the phone, and he can hear her talking to someone, can hear the low timbre of a man’s voice.

“I’ll call you right back,” she says swiftly, and hangs up the phone. Rickon pulls the cordless away from his ear and stares at it, as if it could give him an answer, an explanation.

“What happened? Who was it? Was it Renly?” Sansa is hunched forward, wine glass in her hand.

“That was… weird. It was some chick and she said she wasn’t Renly, that Renly was her uncle. And then she told me she’d--” The ringing of the phone interrupts him, and he nods down to the phone. “Told me she’d call back.” He looks at the little caller ID screen. It tells him Shireen Baratheon is calling. Baratheon. B. Renly B.

“Hello?” He answers. “Shireen?”

“How’d you- oh right, caller ID,” she sighs. “Yeah, I’m Shireen. Look, you said your last name was Stark? As in um, as in Eddard Stark?” Her already throaty voice drops when she says his dad’s name, though whether it’s out of respect or caution he cannot tell, and he starts to regret that last beer.

“Yeah, he’s, well, he _was_ my father. He’s dead.”

“I know. Sorry about that. Hang on,” she says, and there is a pause before a man speaks into his ear.

“Hey there,” the voice says. “This is Renly. Rickon, is it?”

“Yeah,” Rickon says lamely, feeling stupid for not having a better response. He feels well and truly drunk now, and he draws up his knees, bare feet on the bed, rests an elbow against his knee and his head in his hand, trying to stop his thoughts from spinning and dipping and twisting around on themselves. “Yeah, so um, look. My mom and dad and brother are all dead, and the last thing, well, one of the last things my brother said before he died was to call you, to call Renly B. That’s weird because we don’t know you, but we want to know why. Like, why he said that, I mean. Your name, I mean.”

“It’s not really  _so_  weird,” Renly says, and Rickon doesn’t know if he’s being smug or sarcastic, and it immediately pisses him off. He is about to cuss this guy out, this Renly B., but then Renly sighs and speaks again. “Because I’m the one who hired your father, Rickon.”

“Wait, what? You hired him?”

“Yes, because of my own brother’s death. Look, I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. Shireen’s cell phone should be okay, but I’m not certain about your line. Text her cell and she’ll send you our address. Are you all right with that?”

“Um, yeah,” Rickon says, and now he wishes he’d listened to his sister, that he’d waited until tomorrow, until eventual sobriety to make such a heavy phone call. “Yeah, that’s fine. My sister and me, we’ll uh, yeah. We’ll come.”

“I think y’all deserve some answers. I’ll hang up now so you can text her.”

They end the call and Rickon explains to Sansa what transpired, shaking his head as he pulls out his phone again, making Sansa read out Shireen’s number as he taps it into his phone and texts Renly’s niece. She replies immediately with an address and he recognizes the location as a suburban area called Forest Hills.

“I can’t believe this,” Sansa says as they leave their parents’ bedroom, flicking on the hallway light before Rickon turns off the lights on their father’s and mother’s nightstands. She stops in the bathroom and dumps her wine out in the sink, and Rickon does the same with the rest of his beer. “I had no idea dad was on a case. I mean, he was never one for just chatting away but mom and I would talk on the phone for like an hour at a time.”

“Renly said it was all over his brother’s death. Maybe that means a suspicious death, and that’s why they kept quiet about it.” His sister has bought him a small array of toiletries in anticipation of his release, and so he is able to brush his teeth after he unwraps a blue toothbrush while Sansa leans against the bathroom door frame, wine bottle and empty glass in her hands.

“Did you text his niece a time we’d go? Because if so, please for the love of God tell me you made it in the afternoon. I could sleep a thousand years, and will need to if I want to avoid a hangover.”

“We’re going there at 4pm, so sleep in all you want,” he says after spitting toothpaste into the sink. He washes out his mouth and scrubs his face with soap, turns to his sister after he dries his face. “Are you going to be okay?”

Sansa smiles at him, head lolling as she turns to regard him. “Yeah, honey, I’ll be fine. Thank you. I put clean sheets on your bed upstairs and vacuumed up there so it’s not dusty, but you’ll be amused, it’s like a time capsule up there.”

They hug each other good night and she closes the bathroom door, and he hears the shower turn on before hauling himself up the carpeted stairs into the bedroom. She was right; nothing has been touched up here.  The pitched ceiling is still covered in posters, and the continuity of theme changes from left to right. There are three twin beds, one in the far corner, Robb’s, and two that are closer together, his by the little window he used to sneak out of and Bran’s in the center of the room. There are Dropkick Murphys posters over his, Radiohead posters over Bran’s, while Robb’s side of the room is dedicated to Rage Against the Machine.  _Headphones were a valuable commodity in this room_ , he thinks with a sad smile as he shuts off the light and uses the glowing screen of his phone to make his way to his bed.

The moon is out and Rickon stares at it, arms folded beneath his head as he lies on his back, and he has not yet even attempted to close his eyes and try sleeping when there is a chime from his phone. He looks at it on his nightstand, beside the old radio clock that used to jar him awake with shitty pop music in time for school. There’s a text waiting for him, and when he reaches over and grabs the phone, holding it above him, he sees it’s from Shireen. He drops the phone on his face and swears, rubbing his nose as he twists onto his side to read the text, to reply.

 

Sorry about your family. That’s awful, Renly just told me.

Yeah, it sucks. What did he say?

He’ll tell you tomorrow. He should be the one to tell.

I don’t care if you tell me. It’d be nice to know.

Go to sleep, Rickon Stark.

YOU go to sleep. You texted me, remember?

Starting to regret it. :)

You and me both.

 

 

 

Chapter title taken from Black Out Days - Phantagram


	3. Karma Police

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114802092108/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-3-karma-police)

Sansa blinks blearily at the lilac colored wall next to her bed, the midday sunlight filtering in through the blinds across the wall, bleaching white stripes on the already well faded pale purple. She feels absolutely horrible, and she tells herself she will never drink wine again, her inner voice sounding as groggy and graveled as her brain feels.

She and Arya each got to paint a wall whatever color they wanted once they both hit high school; Sansa had felt very just in picking such an innocuous, pleasant shade, though now it’s a little sickly sweet for her tastes, but Arya had bulldozed ahead and chosen black, much to her older sister’s horror. _A deal’s a deal,_ Arya had said, and her father, reluctant though he may have been, shrugged and nodded. _She’s right, Sansa, I put no restrictions on the color._ The old black wall looks dingy without the posters and ticket stubs Arya had plastered all over it, and so Sansa keeps her back turned to it. It would just add to her hangover.

Her old bedroom is just off of the kitchen and though the door separating her room from it is closed, though he is trying to be quiet, she can hear her brother puttering around the kitchen, and the smell of coffee is wafting through. It was what woke her in the first place, and though she wishes she could sleep more, the idea of coffee is extremely appealing, and it convinces her to sit up. Her head throbs from the movement and she winces, whimpering a bit under her breath, feeling sorry for herself though she has no one to blame  _but_  herself.

Rickon is staring into the fridge when she opens the door of her bedroom, earbuds in and head bobbing in time to some beat, and when the movement of her entering the room catches his eye he jumps like a cat. He slams shut the refrigerator door, twisting on his heels before chuckling as he takes the buds from his ears.

“Jesus, you scared me. I’m still not used to people sneaking up on me being okay.” _The perks of prison life,_ she thinks sadly. Her brother looks tired in his shirt and boxers, but not as poorly off as she is, and his hair is still wet from what she assumes was a shower. “I made coffee.”

“Oh, I know,” she says, shuffling across the room to get a mug from the cupboard. “It’s the only reason I’m up right now.”

“You gonna be okay for later today? I can text them and reschedule if you want me to.” He returns to staring into the refrigerator, finally deciding on eggs. Sansa holds open the fridge door as he grabs them, and then gets the half and half for herself.

“No way, we’re doing this. I want to know what’s going on as much as you do. Do you think this Renly guy is going know who killed them?”

“I think he’s got an idea, yeah, or else he wouldn’t have given us his address.”

As she doctors her coffee she watches him scrounge around for a skillet and spatula, and despite her hangover she is amused to see her little brother fending for himself in a kitchen. She has lived in California since he was 10, only heard the horror tales of his adolescence over the phone, never saw him grow up aside from school breaks that were spent in absolute self-absorption.  _At least he knows how to cook eggs,_  she thinks with a smile when he takes her half and half and adds it to the bowl of beaten eggs. He leaves the egg shells on the counter when he turns back to the stove, and there is a ring of cream where the bowl was.  _But he is a sloppy cook._

He makes breakfast for them both, adding shredded cheese to the eggs before plating them up, and they sit together at the small kitchen table, eating and drinking coffee. The table was never big enough for the entire family when she was still at home, but she thinks how it’s just the right size now, and the thought makes her sigh, hold her head in her hands as she eats.

“So I guess all my stuff is in boxes downstairs,” he says with his mouth full, referring to the basement. “I was thinking about uh, unpacking them here. Like, staying here. Is that okay?” Sansa smiles.

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” she says, sitting back from her eggs and propping her foot on the edge of her chair, hugging her folded leg. She watches him eat, how he angles his body around his food, forearm and wrist curved around the plate, and it makes her think of wild animals guarding their kill. She wonders how many signs of life lived behind bars she will pick up on before they fade. She hopes they fade, hopes they have no reason to return.

“I mean I won’t like, take down Robb’s stuff if you don’t want me to, but I don’t have a place to live right now, and uh, you know, I’m not ready to leave here yet.”

“You don’t have to ask my permission, Ric, this isn’t my house. I mean, it’s my home, but not like in a legal way. It’s yours, actually,” she holds her mug in both hands as she waits for his reaction.

He stops shoveling eggs into his mouth and stares up at her with a confused frown. He chews, much slower now as he looks at her, and shakes his head when he finally swallows. A piece of damp hair flops over his brow and she resists the urge to brush it back.  _Mom would do that._ “I’m sorry, I think I just lost my mind for a minute, there. What did you say?”

“They left the house to you, honey. In their will. There’s money, too, savings accounts and investments, but not that much of it, not really, and besides we have to split it between the five of us.” She winces, and not from her pounding head. “Sorry, the four of us.”

“I own a house now?”

“Well, we need to go down and get it all squared away legally. I wanted to give us some time to deal with everything else first, but yes. You own a house. And thanks to all of that penny-pinching mom did, you own it free and clear.”

“What?”

“I mean, there’s no mortgage payment. It’s actually owned now. By you.”

“Holy shit,” he says, and she lets it sink in. She turns and gazes out to the backyard and how green it is. It’s lush in San Diego but here it’s utterly vibrant with the color. Green trees, thick and springy from a long, wet summer nearly blot out the view of the neighbors behind them, the tall wooden fence doing the rest of the work. She remembers playing hide and go seek in the dark, their little world of play lit up with fireflies and not much else.

“How old is this will? What if they wanted to change it after- you know. After I fucked up so bad. What if they really want you to have it, or Robb. I bet they wanted Robb to have it,” he says, and she sets her mug down and leans forward, resting a hand on his wrist.

“No. They wanted it to go to you. I think- honey, I think they wanted you to have a place, you know? A home. No matter what happened or what you did you’re always going to be their baby boy. They’re going to want to look out for you, even if they can’t be around to do it. So, please try and think of it that way. I think it’s wonderful. Think about it, you own your own home now. After everything that’s happened, after you did your time, you have a place to rest your head.”

He chews on this a moment and then frowns at her. “What about you? You’re here now, but what about everything back in California?”

She bites her lip and looks down because this is something she has been asking herself for three weeks. She’s nearly been here a month and there is nothing pulling her back home, nothing tugging on her to suggest that the place she’s lived the past decade even  _is_  home. She has a few friends, yes, and she’ll miss Jeyne, but there is a gaping wound in her heart from everything that’s happened. It is shattering to roam this house and look through to the past, but the idea of being away from it hurts even worse. The last place she wants to be is on the west coast away from this house, these memories, her little brother. And there’s a chance Arya and Bran will make it back, and she can’t be gone if they come home, she can’t miss the chance to hug them again. She looks up and smiles shyly.

“I think- I was considering moving back here, to be honest,” and the hopeful little look he gives her just about kills her, it’s so open and vulnerable and  _sweet_. In his blue eyes she sees four year old Rickon begging to be taken to the playground or to Burger King, pulling this same yearning puppy dog expression he wears now. “There’s just so much stuff to take care of, all the legal stuff, and then there’s Robb’s apartment, too. And, you know, you’re here,” she finishes, because it is the truth and is something that Rickon needs to hear. He needs to know he is loved. “It’d be nice to get to know you, to be brother and sister again.”

“I’d like that,” he says with the grin of a spoiled little boy, and it makes her laugh.

“I think I would too.”

 

Sansa’s headache is gone but she tells him she still feels like shit, so Rickon drives them out to the boonies, past his old high school and The Bluebird Café, out past where the yards are always over an acre, where they pass churches and cows before turning off of Hillsboro road, Sansa reading the directions as he smokes and drives. The scenery is idyllic and fresh, even at the tail end of summer, and it clashes terrifically with his mood, his nerves. He wears the colors of mourning, a black t-shirt and dark jeans, having hauled up a few of the boxes in the basement where his parents had stored them, putting his life on hold for him as he paid the price for his crimes. It is strange, to him, how his stuff was in the musty old basement of a house he now owns. Even in a house that is his, now, he is shoved to the side, under the carpet like a swept up pile of dirt, a hushed scandal whispered in secrecy in the dark. He deserves that, but does not think he deserves the house.

It is impossible for him to sit still as they barrel down the road towards uncertainty, towards knowledge he needs but is unsure if he wants, and he fidgets with the radio, taps the steering wheel, rolls the window up and down, up and down, until finally his sister snaps at him to be still before he gives her another headache. They make another turn and then find the address. He swings the SUV onto their driveway and he and Sansa both stare open mouthed at the huge brick house that rises up from atop a small hill. There are white pillars that stud the long front porch, and thick shrubs that line the walkway leading from the driveway to the porch steps. If someone told him he’d gone back in time to some old plantation home, he’d believe them.

“Well shit,” he says, leaning over the steering wheel. “I guess this Renly Baratheon’s got some money, huh.”

“Understatement,” Sansa murmurs. “Go on, keep going, we probably look like a couple of hicks just sitting here staring.”

“They’d need binoculars to see us from this far away,” Rickon says, referring to the sprawling lawn and long drive, but he takes his foot off the brake and eases them up the drive, parking behind a pristine, shimmery Audi. He wants to give his mom’s old 4Runner a loving pat and assure it that he loves it more than any fancy car, but he casts a lingering gaze to the cream colored Audi all the same.

“Ready?” He says, and Sansa nods. She looks tense and tired though neither of these things diminishes her beauty in any real way, but it still makes him sad to see her so thinly stretched. “God, this is just so weird.”

“I feel like Nancy Drew,” she says, and she rolls her eyes when he asks who that is, and they are bickering back and forth about his lack of reading prowess as they climb the porch steps, he insisting that even if he read more he’d not read books for girls, she demanding to know when he turned into such a sexist, when the front door opens. A good looking guy in his late thirties, maybe early forties stands there, and he can only assume that this is Renly. He’s dressed in jeans and a green and white baseball t-shirt, and he looks like he’s headed for a walk in the park instead of standing in front of such a ritzy house.

“Hey there,” he drawls with an easy smile as he steps towards them out onto the porch, though there is sympathy in his eyes. “Nice to meet you, though I’m sorry for the circumstances bringing us together,” he says, shaking first Sansa’s hand, who introduces herself with a small smile, before turning and shaking his with a firm grip. “You’re taller than you sounded,” he smiles, having to look up slightly to meet Rickon’s eye, and Rickon shrugs.

“You’re richer than you sounded,” and Sansa hisses  _Rickon, please,_  but Renly just laughs.

“Well good. I don’t want to  _sound_  rich. That would be horrific. Now come on in and let me get y’all something to drink,” he says, holding open the screen door and waving Sansa in first and then Rickon. The foyer has marble floors and a wooden staircase leading upstairs, and above the landing hangs an oil painting of three men, the one of the left clearly Renly, with his charming smile and artfully tousled hair. The other two are dark haired like he is but there, the similarities end, as one is a large, burly, smiling man and the other is thin as a reed and just about as emotive.

“My brothers and me,” Renly says, catching Rickon’s glance. “Robert,” her says, pointing to the big man in the center, “and Stannis. God rest their souls,” and that is just another way to keep the reason they’re here on the surface of his awareness.  _My dad was investigating one of those guys,_  he thinks, _and now he’s dead._

“Let’s go on through to the back yard. Shireen’s got some iced tea out there, unless you’d like a beer?” Sansa blanches and they both shake their heads, murmuring _No thank you_ in unison. They walk through a bright kitchen, clearly updated, out onto the back patio, which he can see through the sliding glass door. It’s a bricked area surrounded by trees with a fountain burbling merrily in the center, and off to the side next to a cluster of rose bushes is a table with its center umbrella up and a sweating pitcher of iced tea next to four glasses, sunshine glittering in the ice cubes. Rickon sees a long fall of brown hair hanging over the back of a green wrought iron patio chair and beyond it a pair of suntanned legs, crossed at the ankle, bare feet bobbing atop the table to some imagined rhythm, the sunlight winking off the bright red of her toenail polish. It’s a pretty sight and puts a smile on his face, lets him slip into a fantasy world of happy families and lazy late-summer days.

 Renly slides open the door and she sits up, looking over her right shoulder.  _So this is Shireen_  he thinks, and she’s  _pretty_ , and he remembers how long he’s been in prison, how long it had been before that, when Lyra had left him. A year and a half is a long time for a 21 year old, and the thought of breaking that dry spell, the sight of those legs, make his cheeks burn.

“Come on honey, you weren’t born in a barn,” Renly says as he trots down the cement stairs and down to the table, swatting her calf with the back of his hand. She tucks her legs to her chest and lowers them to the ground, laughs and apologizes, and at the sound of her voice he can confirm that this is the girl he talked to last night. “Come meet our guests,” her uncle says, and she stands and turns and Rickon’s breath and thoughts are momentarily stolen from him as he tries to process what he sees.

She’s as pretty as he thought on first glance, wide blue eyes in a heart shaped face, and a mouth painted as red as her toes. But it’s the left side of her face that captures his attention. It is covered with strange scars, each its own little crater on her otherwise smooth skin, and the scars have made the tan that covers the rest of her impossible, leaving half of her speckled. He gapes as Sansa introduces herself, and then he realizes he’s just staring, staring, staring when Shireen extends her hand to him and smiles, waiting for him to shake it, but when he doesn’t, frozen as he is, she narrows her eyes.

“Go on, get it out of your system,” she says testily, folding her arms across her chest, and he wants to tell her he’s staring because it only took him by surprise, and that he’s not trying to be a dick. He wants to tell her that she’s pretty and the scars don’t take away from that, but he’s just met this chick and her uncle is beside him with an amused look on his face, and they are there to discuss his parents and brother, not this woman’s lovely, lively face. So Rickon botches it.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m Rickon.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she says, turning back to the table. Sansa glares at him over her shoulder as she follows suit and sits down with her back to the sun across from Shireen, tips her head to the left, indicating he sit beside her there.

“Shireen had a very severe case of chicken pox when she was a child,” Renly says gently, his voice barely above a whisper, coming to the rescue and approaching Rickon, resting a hand on his shoulder as he guides him to the table. “The scars are pretty bad, and she’s a little sensitive about it.” Rickon nods stupidly, staring at Shireen’s back as they approach the table.

Feeling like an asshole, he sits between his sister and Shireen, Renly taking the seat across from him, and Shireen pours them both iced tea, handing Sansa her glass with a delicate hand before roughly clunking his down on the wrought iron. Iced tea sloshes out of his glass and he glances at her. She arches a brow at him, and it’s plain as day that it’s a challenge; he didn’t get into fist fights in school and land himself in prison without learning a thing or two. But he’s not here to fight with this woman, he’s here to find out about his parents, so he takes the glass and sips it, shaking off the tea from his hands under the table. Seemingly satisfied, Shireen sits back in her chair, propping a bare foot on the edge of her chair, slouching down slightly as she holds her glass against her chest. Renly pours for himself and when he has his glass he clears his throat, and Rickon leans forward, crossing his forearms on the table.

“I’m going to get right down to it, but first I need to back us up and start with my part, and why I hired your father. Three months ago my brother Robert died, extremely unexpectedly. He was on a hunting trip with some of his friends and wound up shot to death. Now I know that sounds like a plausible accident, but they are all extremely skilled hunters and it just didn’t seem right. None of his friends were near him when they heard the shot and they all swear that none of them had fired at that time.

“Now, he was in a pretty toxic marriage with a woman named Cersei Lannister. Have you heard of the Lannisters? They’re a pretty prominent family here in Nashville.”

Sansa and Rickon shake their heads in unison. “I’ve been in San Diego the past decade, and Rickon, well, he’s younger, and, you know,” she trails off lamely with a sigh, lowering her eyes to her clasped hands in her lap. Rickon rolls his eyes.

“I was in the clink,” he says, taking another sip of iced tea. It’s good, and not too sweet, and the tang of lemons is a fine, luxurious thing, such a contrast to the way admitting he was in prison tasted. Shireen snorts a disbelieving laugh and gives him a critical look, and he meets her look unashamed, shrugs his shoulders. “Whatever, it’s true.”

“Anyways,” Renly says delicately, eyebrows raised in mild surprise at the admission. “The Lannisters, Tywin, his son Tyrion and his daughter Cersei are old money and big into real estate, but with the recession and everything, they’ve taken a massive hit. And to be honest, my brother wasn’t much for saving. He was more the grasshopper than the ant in that tale. So it got me wondering if he was somehow killed for his money, or maybe to stop him from  _spending_  his money; I don’t know, something just felt off. I hired your dad to look into it, but I think the Lannisters got wind of my suspicions, and I think they may have tapped my phone, because Ned called me, telling me he’d found something, and was on his way over. An hour later he was dead.”

“The cops said they thought it was a coincidence, his being a P.I. and being shot. Said it was a botched carjacking,” Sansa says, and there are tears in her eyes, hovering there like drops of dew on her lashes. Rickon covers her hand with his and squeezes it. They are getting good at comforting each other though they lived a thousand miles apart for more years than they lived together as brother and sister.

“Well if you think it’s these Lonnisters then why can’t you go get them? Call the cops or whatever. Then we could get them for killing my family,” Rickon says.

“Lannisters,” Shireen corrects him, and her voice is more kind than their earlier exchange. “And Ned died before he could tell or give Ren the evidence. If he had any with him, then it was taken at the scene of the crime.”

 _Scene of the crime,_  Rickon thinks, holding his head in a hand, raking his fingers through his hair.  _My parents died at a scene of a crime._ He feels a familiar emotion burbling up inside him, going by the name of anger, though to Rickon it might as well be the blood in his veins or the air in his lungs.

 “So, what, you suspect the Lannisters of killing your brother and now our parents and brother, but there’s no proof?” Sansa asks, running a finger through the condensation on her glass.

“They cleaned up their tracks very well,” Renly says before taking a swig of iced tea.

“And since they were tapping Renly’s phones, he’s scared to push too much more or else they’re going to go after him. And then I’d be all alone,” Shireen says, smiling fondly to her uncle, who chuckles and pats her hand. “The police didn’t accept his foul play theory so they’re useless, too. It’s why we rented this house and got out of downtown. The phones are probably clean here, but we didn’t want to risk it, which is why I texted you the address.”

“So there’s nothing that we can do?” Sansa asks, and the sorrow on her face is diluted with a shot of anger. “We just let them kill people we love and do nothing?”

“I’m out of ideas right now,” Renly says apologetically, sweeping a hand through his brown hair. He is incredibly well kempt, and Rickon feels like a scrub next to him, is glad he managed to shower earlier, especially now that he sits in the muggy late afternoon sunshine. “Your dad died and I panicked. We’ve been busy moving and kind of getting ourselves off the grid.”

“We can’t just do  _nothing_ ,” Sansa says heatedly, slapping the table with her hand. Ice cubes rattle inside all four of their glasses, and Shireen and Renly jump slightly, more than likely expecting such an outburst from him and not her, not when she sits there in a pale blue sundress with her hair in a bun. No, the outburst is something that Rickon has perfected; he’s also good at other things, and watching the despair and rage and pain flicker across his sister’s face makes him set his jaw.

“Fuck that,” he snaps. He is consumed at that moment by bitterness and hatred and grief and rage and shoves his chair away from the table, getting to his feet in one rough moment. Everyone stops and stares up at him, but he does not care. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it as he stalks off towards and past the fountain. How dare it exist so peacefully when everything is falling down around him? He’d kick it if he didn’t know that doing so would likely break his toes.

“We’re not going to do just  _nothing_ ,” Rickon spits out as he turns on his heel to face the others. He’s glaring and they’re staring, and he sees that they’ve both got blue eyes like his sister and him; Baratheon blue are darker than the Starks’, but there it is, a table of blue eyed mourners, and he wonders when blue became the new color of grieving. “We’re going to take this bitch down and make her fucking  _pay_.”

 

“Your uncle seems nice,” Sansa says to Shireen as the two women watch Renly and Rickon talk and walk the perimeter of the back yard, the lawn neatly manicured up to the tree line where the men are standing. Renly gestures frequently to the wood while her brother nods, cigarette in his mouth, hands shoved in his pockets. He looks angry even from here, though their host is clearly trying to calm him down with distractions, and Sansa finds she is somewhat envious of his anger. She has rage too, but it is watered down with mourning. She has yet to set it on fire like he has, but she has always been a patient person, even as a little girl, and so Sansa knows her time will come.

“He is. He’s a good guy. He took me in when my folks died. Cancer with my mom, Iraq with my dad,” she explains when Sansa gives her a horrified, mystified look from across the patio table.

“Shireen, I am  _so_  sorry,” she says, and the brown haired woman shakes her head.

“It’s all right, really. My mom died almost 12 years ago, but she was so sick, in so much pain, even as a kid I could see that. And my dad, well. He was a career man in the military and he died doing what he loved, so I guess there’s that. If I didn’t have Renly, I don’t think I could’ve handled it as well as I did,” she says, and then she winces. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t- I know y’all don’t have any- Christ, I'm sorry,” she murmurs, shaking her head at her forgetfulness.

“It’s all right, honestly. You’re allowed to have your own story, Shireen,” Sansa says, meaning it. Once upon a time she maybe would have frowned, thinking she was being marginalized or bulldozed, thinking the attention was being pulled away from her, but these days she knows all too well that everyone has pain, that everyone needs a hug, that everyone needs the attention, and she is eager to share it now, because it is far lonelier to do otherwise. “When I was younger, I loved this book  _The Boxcar Children._  Have you read it?”

Shireen nods with a small smile.

“I always wanted to be Jessie in the books. I thought it would be so fun living in a boxcar with my brothers and sisters – there’s also Arya and Bran, by the way, but they’re out of state right now – just us, taking care of each other.” Sansa shakes her head and gives a bitter laugh. “Now it’s basically come true, and I just feel so stupid for ever thinking that could be fun.”

“I used to pretend I was an orphaned princess locked away in a tower. Then my mother died, and I felt like I murdered her.”

They smile sadly to one another and turn to watch Renly and Rickon. It seems Shireen’s uncle has worked some sort of magic on her little brother, because Renly says something with another wild gesture and Rickon bursts out laughing.

“Did your brother really go to prison?” Shireen asks casually, her eyes lowering to her lap before lifting cautiously to Sansa.

Sansa sighs and rolls her eyes, pressing a hand to her head a moment. It is not that she’s embarrassed, but she does not want her brother, and in extension her entire family, to be judged by the worst decision he ever made. “He did, yes. It was nothing violent, not really, just something incredibly stupid. Everyone makes mistakes,” she says, and there is the lightest layer of defensiveness atop her voice.

“Oh I know,” Shireen says dryly, “I’ve been on dates you wouldn’t believe,” and the tension flees as they both laugh together.  _It’s a good thing, this laughter_ , Sansa thinks.

“He’s a good guy, honestly. I know he offended you, but if there’s one thing Rickon isn’t, it’s artificial like that, how he seemed.”

“It just gets old, everyone staring. I don’t even go out anymore, I just, I stopped trying, you know?. All I wanted when I was younger was to go to college, to turn 21 and go out dancing all night. I went to school and was treated like a leper. Jumping ahead a couple of years didn’t help, either. And when I turned 21,  I’d try to go out and I’d come back to my dorm in tears. My cousin Joff used to throw mud pies at me, telling me it would improve my looks.”

“Joff?”

“Robert and Cersei’s son,” Shireen says, propping her foot up on the seat of her chair once more and wrapping an arm around her bent knee. “He dropped his dad’s name when he died. Such a shit move.”

“A Lannister,” Sansa says, and though she’s only known who they are for an hour, the name already has a sinister ring to it.

“A Lannister  _and_  an asshole. He is the spitting image of Cersei and just like her. Nothing at all like my uncle Robert, which is a shame. That man was hilarious, even if he did drink too much.” Shireen takes a half melted cube of ice from her glass and pops it into her mouth as if it were a grape and crunches on it as they watch Rickon and Renly approach. Sansa smiles, knowing what Renly has done for her brother’s temper even if Rickon doesn’t; but then Shireen speaks and Sansa marvels at the other woman’s desire to rile her brother as a cat plays with a mouse.

“So, tough guy, how are you going to take down the Lannisters?” Shireen looks up at him with a smirk, a hand held to her hairline to block the sun from her eyes, and Sansa breathes out a smile when Rickon simply grins down at her, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out on the bricks with the toe of his shoe. He squats down by her chair to pick it up, much to Sansa’s relief.

She watches her little brother as he looks up to Shireen, a dark smile on his face.  _He looks like a wolf on the hunt,_  Sansa thinks.  _Maybe I’m one, too._  She glances to Shireen, who looks deeply amused as she watches Rickon, and then Sansa looks up to Renly, standing behind his niece, who simply rolls his eyes with a grin as these two test one another.

“I’ll figure something out,” Rickon says with a casual shrug as he stands up, flicking the cigarette butt with an experienced thumb and forefinger into the little metal gardening trashcan at the edge of the bed of roses. “In the meantime, you want a little taste of revenge, honey, you’ve got my number.”

 

 

 

Title taken from Karma Police - Radiohead


	4. Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114805171213/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-4-strangers)

“Jeyne’s already been boxing up some stuff for me and I just need to meet with my boss in person, cash some checks, that sort of crap.  I don’t want to linger there, anyways. I don’t know,” Sansa tells him as they idle there at the airport, in the drop off lane behind six other cars. She is back to dressing like the clean cut, polished sister he remembers, before prison time and being orphaned, before murders and cremations and empty rooms in what used to be a full house. It’s been two weeks since they met Renly and Shireen Baratheon, and she’s on her way to Point Loma to tie up her loose ends, toss a match on that bridge and come back to Nashville.

“Ever since everything happened, I just want to turn my back on that part of my life. I don’t care if it’s running away, I don’t care if it’s hiding out in mom and dad’s house. It’s what I want,” she says, and then she smiles at him, reaching out to ruffle his hair as if he was a kid still, or a puppy, but Rickon finds he doesn’t care. He smiles back to her, though he has a fear that he will get into trouble the minute she leaves, and gives her a hug after they get out of the car, after he hands her the neat little carry-on she has, her only piece of luggage aside from her purse.

“Don’t get in any trouble while I’m gone,” she says, as if she knows his thoughts, and he chuckles, shrugging.

“Trouble finds me, usually, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, well, try and stay hidden from it, then,” she smiles, and then she’s off, her little suitcase rolling behind her as she disappears into the airport. A few men give her appraising looks and Rickon narrows his eyes, but then she’s out of his sight and he can do nothing, save follow her and glare at every man who has the nerve to find his sister pretty.

He blares the radio loudly on his way home but doesn’t sing or scream along to the lyrics that he knows; his brain is too full of stupid plots of revenge that peter out and go nowhere, that are just dead ends of hope. Two weeks, since they found out about these Lannisters, and aside from Googling the name and Facebook stalking Joffrey, staring into the laptop screen in mute rage, they’ve done nothing. He grips the steering wheel and drives carefully, but it’s just going through the motions, and he is far away in his own thoughts.

It is why he barely registers the scene waiting for him when he gets home, pulling the car into the short driveway, blocking in Robb’s motorcycle that he hasn’t yet had the heart to fire up. Everything is as it should be; the grass is still green, recently mowed by him three days ago, the newspaper in its orange plastic bag lying on the first porch step. It’s the large man sitting above it on the top step that is out of the ordinary, and seeing his old cellmate sitting on the steps of his house is a perfect coming together of Rickon’s time in prison and his recent acquisition of this house; paperwork involved for both, as he and Sansa went down to the lawyer’s office a week ago, so similar but also so very, very different.

Sandor has two green canvas duffel bags flanking him as he sits with his head bowed, though his eyes are lifted, gaze pinned on the SUV. His forearms are braced on his knees and he hunches over them, yet even in this reduced position he still looks every bit as massive as when he stands up. He wears his black hair tied in a knot at the base of his skull and wears the scruff of a three day beard, which grows in on the scarred side of his face nearly as fully as the other, though it stops just short.

“Well, no shit,” Rickon says with a grin as he exits the car, locking it with a press of the button on his keychain. He walks around the 4Runner towards his old cellmate, who stands and comes down the stairs to shake Rickon’s hand, rubbing the back of his neck with his other. They are both nearly the same height, Sandor standing only a few inches taller, but he is so broad, so corded throughout with muscle that Rickon feels, and likely looks, a scrawny runt next to him.

“You told me to look you up if I had no other options,” Sandor says, gruff and low, defensive almost and certainly embarrassed over it. “I was staying with a friend but then his woman moved in. Got a bit crowded,” he adds.

“I meant it, man. It’s why I gave you the address.” They fold their arms across their chests in unison, Rickon still grinning, oddly delighted to see his friend again. He’d not thought it likely, but here he is. He glances over his shoulder to the beat-up, faded blue pickup parked in the street, nods his head towards it.

“That beast yours?”

“Aye. The same friend kept it waiting for me.” It is strange to see him outside of the DOC, and he looks larger, wilder, out in the open, out here where he is free. He wears simple jeans and a black short sleeved t-shirt, but compared to the prison uniforms it looks as fancy and stand-out as a tuxedo.

“Well, come on in, man. I know it’s only 3 o’clock but I could use a beer, and I bet you could too,” Rickon says, unfolding his arms to clap a hand on his friend’s back as they both turn to climb the steps, each grabbing a bag before going go inside, and suddenly he wonders if Sandor is any good at plotting revenge.

 

It was likely the run that did it; exercise always affects her emotions, and Sansa has left a yoga class before in tears, another time half laughing from elation. But after her run along the water on Shelter Island, she finds her anger, has lit it up like Rickon, and she paces in her little kitchen, fuming. She considers going out for another run, but then her eyes fall on a glass, sitting by the sink waiting to be washed, and before she is aware of what she’s doing, Sansa picks it up and flings it against the wall, shattering it, and there is a raw sort of pleasure to hear it and see it and know that  _she_  did it. She grabs the plate out of the sink and hurls it after the glass, and suddenly she is in a mad, feverish rush to destroy anything she can get her hands on.

For two weeks she has listened halfheartedly to Rickon scheme and fume, to try to think of ways to get to the Lannisters, to ferret out the truth; halfheartedly because she never thought it would go anywhere. But now, she is absolutely sure that they  _must_  figure it out, and they must make it work, because this is fury and this is rage, and they are not just  _nothing,_  they are prayers to be answered, and the thirst they inspire in her must be slaked. Sansa Stark, for the first time in her life, is well and truly pissed off, and she is not going to waste that anger.

At last she runs out of dishes and glasses within reach, and she stands there in her sports bra and jogging shorts, chest heaving from the exertion, realizing that with this much exposed skin she’s lucky she didn’t catch a shard in her shins, lucky that she’s not bleeding. Though the fever has abated and she is no longer at the mercy of her temper there is no great urge to clean up her mess, so she turns and walks back to her bedroom, leaving behind the ghost of the woman she used to be, who would be crouched down sweeping up the mess, apologizing to the thin air for her bad behavior.

It is her turn, now, to ponder ways to get to the Lannisters, standing under the water in her shower, lathering shampoo into her hair, fingernails scrubbing at her scalp with vigor, as if she could scrub out some idea, some master plan, but like Rickon she falls short. She thinks, absurdly, of just calling up this Cersei and asking if she had her parents and brother killed, to startle the truth from the woman, but she laughs sardonically at herself.  _That’s how I’ll end up murdered myself._

She packs up her room after her shower, realizing how disinterested she is in the little things that used to make her smile. A vase of little glass flowers, black and white photos of various locations in Paris, a dried rose from her first date with Harry. They’re all knick-knacks and make her feel like a foolish girl, and there is an odd sort of pleasure she gets when she throws them all away instead of wrapping them up in newspaper and stowing them away in one of the several boxes she has. She takes the mason jar full of seashells, though, the toe shoes from her foray into ballet, and the large photograph of a Scottish castle, half in ruins, covered in moss and shrouded in mystery.

Her work is interrupted by the ringing of her phone, and, thinking it is Rickon or Jeyne, is beyond surprised to see it is Arya. The feeling of satisfaction given her by the temper tantrum and its subsequent destruction is erased, washed over with the usual sadness when it hits her that she is about to have the conversation she will hate, the one she’s had a few times: Harry, Jeyne, her boss, Rickon, now Arya. Her sister has taken so long to return to the real world, tucked away wherever she may be now, that Sansa felt obligated to say in her numerous voicemails what happened to their parents and to Robb, so at least she knows Arya is prepared when Sansa answers her phone and promptly bursts into tears.

“So yeah,” she sniffles after several minutes of them crying together, mourning their brother and parents, after Arya asks for details and Sansa gives them, including Robb’s final words, the afternoon at the Baratheon’s, Rickon’s determination to figure it all out and exact revenge at the same time, “just another day in paradise over there. Where are you guys, by the way?” She asks, referencing Gendry, her sister’s boyfriend since high school.

“We were in Canada but are back stateside now,” Arya replies after blowing her nose. “No, not that one. No, yeah,  _that_  exit. Sorry, we’re on the road right now,” she says to Sansa, who sighs in relief.

“So you’re headed home then,” she says with a smile, eyes closing as she pictures the reunion. She hopes they’ll stay at the house, imagines Arya in her bed and Sansa in hers.  _Gendry could sleep upstairs in Bran’s room, ‘til he comes ba--_

“Um, no, actually,” Arya says, interrupting her daydream, hesitation in her voice as much as it is in her words themselves.

“What? Why not? This is mom and dad, Arya. Robb. Their ashes, we have to- I mean, you’ve got to come pay your respects, don’t you?” She is incredulous but not necessarily surprised; Arya has drifted far and wide, these past nine years, and always away. This, however, is something that Sansa assumed would warrant a return to Nashville.

“I plan on paying my respects. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and talking it over with Gendry, and I think you should send me some of their ashes. I mean, once we settle somewhere for a few days. Then I can spread them as we go.”

“Spread them as you  _go_?” Sansa asks, lifting a hand to her forehead. There is a morbid thought of bits and pieces of her family strewn about the continental United States; an arm here, a leg there, and she shudders, shaking her head. “Arya, that’s insane. Please just come home so we can do a memorial or something.  _Some_  sort of thing.”

“No, I think my idea is a good one,” Arya says, and there is iron to her voice now, stubborn as she is. “You know mom and dad always wanted to travel but never could. This way they can, you know, like forever.”

“Arya, for God’s sake, listen to yourself. It’s borderline insane, and besides, don’t you want to see me, to see Rickon? We need family, we need to be together.” Sansa explains how she’s moving back, how Rickon has taken, relatively well, the news that the house is now his. “And you know Gendry is welcome, more than welcome. You should come home, it’s where you’re needed.”

“I am not going to cling to the past,” Arya snaps. “You want to run home and hide under their bed or something that’s fine, but that’s not how I do things.”

“No, it isn’t,” Sansa bites back. “Running away and turning your back on us, that’s  _your_  way.”

“Fuck that, Sansa. That’s uncalled for. Traveling around isn’t running away,” she says. “That house was crowded and claustrophobic. I never got my own room, and we had two fucking bathrooms for  _seven_  people. I need to breathe my own air, live my own life, and so that’s what I’m fucking doing.”

“Yeah, well it’s a lot less crowded now, considering three of us have been fucking  _murdered,_ ” she shouts, standing up from her bed. Her hand grips the phone so tightly it hurts, and Sansa wishes she had more glasses to break, this conversation has turned that bleak. She does not want to fight with her only sister, not after what happened, but the way Arya is processing this horrible turn of events mystifies her.

“I’ve made up my mind, San,” Arya says, more calmly, to her credit. It makes Sansa, as the older sister, grit her teeth and take three deep breaths, to try and regain her temper like her younger, hotter-headed sister has. The use of the old nickname helps. “I don’t need to go back home and play in the past. I’ve cried my eyes out and I’ve mourned. I’m ready to celebrate them, so just find it in your heart to send me the ashes, and let me get through this in my own way.”

And so Sansa does. She gives up and gives in, because Arya is right, everyone does things in their own way and should be able to do so.  _My way is figuring this shit out,_  she thinks after hanging up the phone, finally going into the kitchen with a broom and dustpan. When she’s finished she goes online to change her return flight to an earlier day and puts in a call to her boss.  _My way is figuring this shit out, and maybe it’s running back home, too, but that’s just it,_  she thinks.  _It’s my home and always has been,_  and she is that eager to leave this place, to go back to her brother and to her house, to figure out why the Lannisters killed her family, and figure out how to make them suffer for that sin.

 

Sandor has slept under Rickon’s roof for four nights now, and the younger man has given him a set of keys already (“There’s a lot of extra sets lying around these days,” he said sadly, tossing them to him from across the room), but still he feels a stranger, an intruder. Twice now Rickon Stark has come to his aid, and he is determined to repay him, though he is unsure how. Not with money, not yet, not until he gets a job, but even that doesn’t seem proper, doesn’t seem fair. Rickon essentially saved his life from that fuck face Meryn, catching him sneaking up behind Sandor with a shiv, effectively stopping him with a solid punch to the face and several kicks to the stomach and groin when Meryn fell like a sack of potatoes to the sun baked ground.  _He’s a tough kid for being so skinny,_  Sandor thinks with a half-smile as he remembers it. So, no. Money won’t cut it, not when you’re  _this_  indebted to a man. He’ll have to figure it out, how to repay him for Meryn. But staying here,  _that_ can be repaid with cash, once he finds work.

He doesn’t know how long he’ll stay here, but the trust Rickon shows him is enough to give him pause, enough to make him want to linger. Sandor has been in prison before, never so long as this last stint but long enough to earn distrust from other people once they find out; he’s used to the alienation, has thickened his skin like armor to it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate what a little trust feels like. Still, though, the kid did draw a line on giving Sandor his late parents’ bedroom, which he understands, and while Sandor can appreciate the nostalgic appeal Rickon has for his own childhood bedroom, Sandor refuses to sleep on a twin bed staring at a Radiohead poster, and so he sleeps downstairs on the sofa until they can figure something else out.

He’s there now, midnight on a Thursday –  _no, Friday now, technically_ – and though he is tired from hauling his ass all around town applying for jobs he’ll not get offered, he finds he cannot sleep. Rickon is sleeping upstairs in his crow’s nest, ensconced from the world where, Sandor reckons, any man would want to be after the hell their family has been put through.  _What’s left of them,_  he thinks, sitting up on the sofa with a sigh. He’s got a sister who lives here too, which is why the violet-colored room is off limits to him as well.  _Sansa_ , Rickon said, though right now she’s packing up her shit somewhere in California. Two more siblings as well, though they don’t live here; one is in France of all the fancy places, and another is camping around the US with her boyfriend, trying to find God in nature or drugs or sex or all three. Sandor snorts to think of it, and with a grunt he heaves himself up off the couch altogether and gets dressed for a late night run.

It’s cooling considerably as they get closer and closer to October but he is grateful for the nip in the air, even more so as he tacks on the blocks to his jog, body temperature rising with every footfall. It feels good to run, to know he is not behind bars and fences, razor wire and the business ends of assault rifles, though he was never particularly fond of the exercise before spending a year in prison. He likes the punching bag, the feel of heavy weights in his hands, though once upon a time it was the faces of men he preferred hitting, which was partly how he wound up in the DOC for a year, which in turn gave him plenty of long days and nights for reflection and self-examination.

Sandor runs all the way down Belmont, past the little university and just into Hillsboro Village before he turns around and heads back to Rickon’s.  _Or is it home,_  he asks himself, wondering when was the last time he truly felt like he had one, like he truly belonged anywhere aside from a bar or a construction site or a line up. He runs until he’s a few houses away and then slows to a walk, panting and sweating, hands on his hips as he catches his breath. He never used to get so winded, but he’s well past 40 now and everything seems to be catching up to him. It puts a terrifying sort of pressure on him, the knowledge that time is running out, sand through a hourglass that is otherwise full of rough living, regrets and guilt and, if he were truly brave enough to admit to himself, sadness, misery, such painful loneliness that he wonders if maybe it’s that which afflicts his body and his bones, and not the passage of time.

It’s just another reason he’s grateful to Rickon for the use of his house and his company, because while the kid has twice as much youth and vigor as he, which vexes Sandor at times, makes him jealous to an extent, Ric is also good company, is, beneath all the shit he’s gotten himself into, a good man, and to have a good man’s trust and friendship is a salve. He smiles to think of it, vowing to figure out how to pay back Rickon as he fumbles for that set of keys as he climbs up the porch steps to the door, but then he freezes. He left the porch light on but now it’s been switched off, and his past misadventures and dalliances have his hackles raised. A dark porch means an excess of hiding places, and he creeps up the rest of the steps half crouched, muscles of his core tightened, heart beating fast as the adrenaline courses through his body. 

He makes it to the door and checks the knob, breathes a sigh of relief to find it still locked, just as he left it, and now he mutters under his breath over his paranoia, blames it on prison, thinks about how Elder Brother had told him, time and time again about the value of trust, how he should trust that maybe the damn light bulb just went out, instead of thinking the world is out to get him.

Sandor unlocks the door and steps inside, and while his hypersensitivity to his surroundings has abated, he cannot help but hear the shower running, the squeak of pipes as it’s shut off. It’s strange, because he was fairly certain Rickon was asleep, was asleep for an hour or more before he decided to go for his run. Still unsure of what’s going on, he slinks down the hall, dark save for a single sconce of light between the bathroom and the entry into the hall, and he pauses to knock lightly on the bathroom door.

“Rickon? You up, mate?”

There is a very feminine gasp and hushed  _ohmygod_ and  _oh fuck oh fuck,_  which makes him chuckle, because now he knows that this must be Rickon’s sister come home early, unless Rickon is so skilled a Casanova that he managed to wake up, go hit on a girl somewhere and bring her back here in the span of forty minutes. Still aware of the fact that he is very much a guest, and that this woman is very much his host’s sister, Sandor backs away.

“Apologies, Miss Stark,” he says, but then the door opens and he stops at the sight of her. She is wet as a drowned kitten, half washed eye makeup ringed under her bright eyes, so vivid he can see their blue even in this half-light, and all the more beautiful for it. There’s a towel wrapped around her body, which she clutches at with both hands between her breasts, and her hair hangs in a wet, dripping tousle over her shoulder. He looks down, watching the water that drips off of her towel onto the wooden floorboards beneath her feet. It takes only a second, this first sighting of her, but to him it feels like a thousand years. 

“Who the hell are you and why are you in my house?” she asks, her voice a tremble despite her firm words, and he thinks  _Ah, the face. Even in this light, she sees it,_  and he curses the light for being on the same side of the hall that his scars are on.  _I look a monster, and she the terrified maiden._  It makes him angry, it makes him bitter, it makes him sad, and he shrugs callously, though she has every right to ask him.

“I’m your new fucking roommate, sweetheart. Ask your brother about it,” and Sandor turns on his heel, back to the couch in the living room, her scandalized scoff filling the hall behind him.

“ _Rickon!_ ” she screams, and he winces as he sits on the blankets that cover the sofa, bending over to untie his running shoes, wondering if there is going to be a Come To Jesus meeting now, or if he has time to take a shower. He thinks of the pale swoop of her shoulders, the beads of water there winking like jewels in the hallway light, and he shakes his head, letting it hang briefly before standing at the sound of Rickon pounding down the attic stairs towards his sister’s panicked call. Sandor sighs. Now he owes the man three times, it would seem.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Strangers by Portishead


	5. We Insist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114861744998/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-5-we-insist)

“Why don’t you just call him?” Renly says with a laugh as he drifts past her, his hand grazing her shoulder affectionately as he heads for the fridge. She is sitting at the small, rectangular kitchen table where they eat their meals, since they have neither the desire nor the company to warrant their eating in the grand dining room. Shireen has been caught staring at her cell phone as she pushes it around and around with her finger, as if she were playing spin the bottle by herself. How he knew she was thinking of Rickon Stark, she’ll never know, but her uncle Ren has always been perceptive, nearly to a fault, and she thinks that’s likely how he made all of his money.

“He’s just some hothead kid,” she says, and Renly interjects with  _Yes, a_ cute _hothead kid,_ to which Shireen rolls her eyes. “He probably just talks a big game,” she says, bowing her head over the phone she’s still spinning, letting her long hair hide the blush that’s likely on her face from being found out. “So yeah, revenge sounds nice, but unlikely from some dude just fresh of out prison.”

“I don’t know, sugar, prison sounds like a great place to develop some pretty good skills for that kind of thing,” Renly says with a sigh as he stares into the open refrigerator. He hangs off the door like a moody teenager, and a whine brings his voice up an octave. “God, there’s nothing good in here, is there?”

“Jesus, Ren, there’s leftover lamb from last night, a huge thing of shrimp pasta carryout from like two days ago, and if you’re desperate, there’s always the dreaded port salut and camembert just wasting away in the cheese drawer,” she ticks them off on her fingers with a roll of her eyes. They eat well and live well and  _she_  knows it, but sometimes her uncle doesn’t see past the handle of the silver spoon that’s been in his mouth since he was born. He told her how Rickon accused him of being richer than he sounded, how it had made him laugh and instantly like the guy for his cheek, and the thought of it makes her want to smile, but she bites her lip in fear that Ren will see it and, as he is wont to do, divine from her the reason for it.

“Well, I know,” he says, voice heavy from the injustice of lamb and Italian and fine cheeses. He sighs again. “I guess I was just wanting something a little more alcoholic.”

Shireen’s right eyebrow rises as if from its own power, and she lifts her head, turns it towards him. She is greeted with as devilish an expression as she herself likely wears. Full of mischief, full of energy that has no destination, no purpose, because all they do now is sit here in fear of more murder, more death, and Shireen has struggled through enough of it for a lifetime.

“Okay, buddy, what’s on your mind then? Mister I Haven’t Eaten Dinner, Mister I Just Want A Drink?” she says with a grin.

“Well, there’s only one person I know who makes a mean martini, and she’s currently taking up space in my kitchen with her bad attitude and her obvious inability to take a hint,” he says, straightening and pulling out olives and vermouth from the fridge. Shireen rolls her eyes and scoots away from the table, and when he extends the jar of olives to her, her hand is already open, and it slaps into her palm with familiarity. They do this dance nearly every night, and while she’s more of a red wine kind of girl, sometimes she makes herself a martini too, and they sit side by side outside, feet resting on the edge of the fountain, gazes noncommittal, conversation at a minimum as they contemplate the myriad prices of life.

She’s lived with him for five years, since her father died while she was getting her master’s, and if hadn’t been for him, Shireen doubts she would have completed the program. She has grown to depend on him for his warmth and his love, his humor and uncanny ability to rise above any occasion, and she seems to make him laugh, seems to brighten his day, though she is unsure how. She can crack a joke, yes, but she can also turn into a dark storm cloud of moody looks, can withdraw into herself until she is a twisted knot of misery, and she can only blame it in part on her face; no matter how tough she talks, Shireen misses her parents, her father most of all, perhaps because that death is the more recent. In moments like that, the knotted, stormy moments, Renly will pull her in for a hug, drag her to the sofa to watch a shitty movie, will pretend to braid her hair though he has no clue what he’s doing, and for _that_ she will always, always be grateful.

He sips his cocktail after she makes it, Shireen sticking to a glass of port as Renly drinks his gin once they move to the living room, sitting in the green velvet loveseats that face each other across a rosewood coffee table. He’s lounging in one as if it were a fainting couch, martini close at hand on the coffee table, while Shireen simply slumps in her loveseat, feet propped up not a foot away from Ren’s drink on the table between them.

“What if he gets an idea?” She finally asks, dreading her uncle’s lighthearted, mildly dismissive laughter. “On how to get the truth out of Cersei. What would you do?”

“I’d tell him to go for it,” her uncle says without hesitation, and she lifts her eyes to look at his profile as he lays there on his little couch, one leg slung over the back of the sofa, the other outstretched over the arm of it. He’s beautiful, and would be waist deep in women if he were interested, but now his beauty takes a backseat to that pondering, contemplative look on his face. He stares up at the ceiling, but when she does not respond he glances to her, and actually manages to shrug without disturbing his recline.

“What does that even mean?” She asks, staring into her little glass, the short stem pinched in her fingers as if she holds a flower instead.

“It means do it. I know that bitch killed your uncle, Shir, but please remember, your uncle is my  _brother_ , and he’s gone. Now, that woman and her brother, Sansa and Rickon? Because of what I’ve done, because of a little phone call, their  _parents_  are dead, and their brother. So, yeah, I say do it. Call him, text him, just do it. Avenge your family, and help avenge the family that died trying to bring Robert’s murderer to justice.”

“Well why me, then? Why not you?” She drains her port and clacks the empty glass down on the coffee table.

“Honey, you know this. I was on the board of Lannister Realty once upon a time. I got my phone tapped. If anyone is going to be next, it’s me, simply because I asked questions. I happen to like living, so I’m going to stop asking them. But you, you’re under the radar. Unless they’ve got eyes on me at all times – which is a lot even for that woman – I doubt they even know you’ve been living with me.  No offense, but you’re such a little recluse, they’ve probably forgotten you exist. Besides, it’s not like you don’t have the free time, you know?”

Shireen harrumphs at that, but doesn’t say anything, just stares down at her phone, her thoughts swirling around like the port had in her glass, and they all seem to settle on a tall boy who roused the ignored hurt and anger in her heart with a battle cry of his own.

 

Sansa is all too aware of the additional presence in the house, and if she were asked point blank, she’d have to admit that it’s because this new presence is one of undeniable masculinity; she’s used to a house full of brothers, but he is absolutely different. Silent, brooding, towering masculinity, with none of the voice-breaking and whining she experienced growing up with boys; he moves like a shark in still water, a tiger through the grass, a fighter in the ring, a _man_. When he walks in one day announcing he got a job at some construction site, it is all she can do not to roll her eyes and say  _Construction. Of course it would be construction._

Oh, how she gave Rickon an earful that night when she got home from her redeye, after the shower she took to wash off the late night flight and the thirty minute cab ride. Sandor nearly scared her out of her wits, this huge stranger standing there while she wore nothing but a towel and a look of terror, not the mention the horrific scars on his face.  _How dare you bring someone else into my house without my permission?_ She said, to which he retorted _He needs help and he needs friends, and that’s something you’ve always stood by._ But by far the worst scolding she got was afterwards. _You met him in prison?_   _I refuse to live with an ex-con under my roof,_  she fairly shouted, standing in her towel halfway up the stairs to his room as he stood, stony faced and resolute at the top, arms folded over his chest.  _You already have been, in case you fucking forgot,_ he snapped at her, wounded and furious, and he shamed her in that moment, though she waited the next morning to admit it to him, choosing instead, in that hot, angry moment to spin on her heel and storm down the attic stairs, wet hair flung across her shoulder so hard he likely felt the spray of water from it.

Now, several days and a mumbling apology later to the both of them – and oh, that had been embarrassing – there is more or less an awkward sort of ease amongst the three of them, though naturally he and her brother are far closer than she and Sandor are. She stammers, more often than not, when speaking with him, and though he likely assumes it’s due to fear over his scars, it’s in reality the shimmering intensity of him, though the scars did scare her the first time she saw them. If Rickon wears his emotions close to the surface, lets them free whenever it suits him, Sandor does not. They are so clearly there, though. The sorrow and unhappiness and anger that reside in her can sense them in him, in the downcast of his eyes, in the slope of his shoulders when he hunches over his food or ties his shoes, and that simultaneously intrigues and intimidates her. His addition to the household confuses her as to whether or not she feels safer for his presence or more uneasy.  _Both,_  she thinks as she washes dishes after dinner, tonight being her turn to do so.

Once she’s finished and turns off the water to dry her hands, she can hear the rumble of their voices from the living room, both deep but only one shaped with a Scottish accent, and Sansa closes her eyes in concentration, trying to hear of what they speak. She hears ‘Lannisters’ and her eyes open, and she tosses the dish rag to the counter and grabs her glass of wine, determined to be a part of this conversation.

“Hey, no fair,” she says, rounding the corner into the room. “I want to scheme, too.” There is a sofa and two rather stiff and dainty old wingbacked armchairs, one on either side of the couch and facing it and a coffee table in the middle of this setup. Rickon sits in one of the wingbacks, long leg thrown over the arm, making do as best he can, while Sandor sits in the center of the couch. She hesitates. There’s the other wingback and the padded piano bench, where Sansa once spent long hours practicing, and she is about to turn and sit there, but Sandor gets it and wordlessly stands, fitting his large body with some difficulty into the antique chair that was designed for diminutive ladies two centuries ago.

She smiles a nervous, jangly smile at him, wishing she had the courage to apologize, and curls up in the corner of the sofa nearest her brother, hoping Sandor understands she means to share. He does not. Sansa clears her throat, dropping her eyes from their new roommate, lifting them to her brother.

“So, plotting, are we?”

“I think we’re getting somewhere,” Rickon says eagerly, swinging his leg down from the chair arm, leaning forward towards her. Sansa glances to Sandor, whose gray eyes are already on her, though they drop quickly enough once their gazes meet. But he nods in agreement with Rickon, and she is still so surprised over his willingness to go along with Rickon’s desire to go after this family.  _Maybe because it is a wicked, murdering family,_  she reasons,  _maybe he has his own scores to settle, and chooses this nasty bunch as the whipping boy._ Though on the surface this could be seen as unfair or unjust, deep below in the darkness of it, it is pleasing enough to her, she is just that determined.

“Lay it on me,” she says as she sips her wine, settling in.

They have decided they need to sneak someone into the house, into the lair, so to speak, across enemy lines to both better understand their foes as well as to try and find  _some_  shred of evidence, to find anything that would link them to the Stark murders.

“Sandor says he’ll do it, since there’s no way they’d know him; we just have to figure out a reason,” her brother says.

“It could just as easily be me,” Sansa shrugs, and to her immense amusement, both her brother and Sandor look affronted. Her brother scoffs, the other man’s broad shoulders drop and he snaps his gaze up to hers, bold this time, unwavering as he shakes his head.

“Don’t be daft, girl, you’re a Stark, they’ll know.”

“I’ve lived in San Diego for the past ten years, thank you very much. I highly doubt they know I’m here, let alone a Stark, if they see me.”

“Oh please, you’ve the Tully blue eyes of every one of us, except for Arya, and your hair’s as red as mom’s.”

“I’d dye it,” she says with another shrug.

“No, no fucking way,” Rickon says, and Sandor nods in agreement. “I mean, _I_  might as well do it if that’s your damn reasoning,” he says. “Six months behind bars, and practically under house arrest for the year leading up to the trial.”

“You _just_ got out of prison, Ric, I’m not letting you get into any more trouble.”

“Sandor has too,” Rickon retorts, pointing to the other man, and she wants to say  _he’s not my brother_ , but she’s left to marvel at Sandor's perception when the scarred man says it himself.

“You’re her brother, mate, not me, and I reckon she’d not like to be parted with yet another family member. I’m fine risking my neck, considering the fact that I still have one to risk is thanks to you. But we need to find a reason to get an old dog like me in that fancy mansion of theirs,” he says. They’ve all looked on the internet, then, Sandor included. There are pictures aplenty there of the house all lit up for high functions that find their way into the spotlight sections of newspapers and websites.

“Why do you do that, call yourself a dog? It’s degrading,” Sansa says with a frown. It’s twice now that she’s heard him refer to himself that way, and she sips her wine as he swigs from his beer. As sad and hurt as she is, she has always tried to be kind to herself, lest the world deny her that civility, and it bothers her that he does the opposite.

Sandor shrugs. “I’ve been bodyguard to a number of less, ah, savory characters than I’d care to admit. Guarding these pricks, well, it made me feel a dog, a big dog guarding the house, and I guess I just got used to the feeling.” He looks at her again, there from across the room, half in shadow as he seems to like, since the two lamps in the room are far from his little nook, and she is caught in his gaze like a bug in amber. There it is, the disappointment in himself, clear as day even across the room.

Rickon snaps his fingers and shouts  _HA,_ making both Sansa and Sandor jump, breaking the shared look, and they both turn to look at him, though she doubts Sandor lifts a hand to his heart as she does, as if she were a lady ready to faint at the shock of his outburst.

“We get you in there as a bodyguard. Fuck, that’s perfect. That’s  _perfect,_ ” he says, standing, walking an excited circle around the coffee table before flinging himself back into the chair.

“How? And for which of them? Cersei? Tywin? I don’t know if they’d just accept the offer of someone like me, rumbling up with a backfiring truck, strutting into their house with my face what it is.”

“What about Joff? We saw all the photos on Facebook, all the tags of the bars he goes to. You could approach him then and offer your uh, your services. Shit,” Rickon says, knowing as well as they all do that it sounds ridiculous. But then Sansa tips her head, looking back and forth between the other two, and smiles. Sandor raises his eyebrow when their eyes meet once more.

“Well, what if you beat him up?” She arches her brow in mirror image of him, earning herself a smile of sorts, one of the first he’s aimed at her.

“I like that idea,” Rickon says eagerly at the same time Sandor goes “What for?” Sansa smiles herself, looking from Sandor to her brother.

“Beat him up, bub. Follow him to one of these bars, and then have Sandor sweep in, rough you up a little. You know, make it  _look_  like he’s kicking your butt. Then Joff is very grateful, though I’m not sure how  _gracious_  considering the content of some of his Facebook status updates, and Sandor explains how he does bodyguard work and, you know, it’s just like, it was second nature to swoop in and help. Part of his very  _protective_  nature,” she says coquettishly, batting her lashes, and even Sandor snorts a laugh with them.

“Okay, fine, but why would getting the shit kicked out of him make him want to hire a full time bodyguard?”

“Because,” she says, and when both of Sandor’s eyebrows lift, she knows the grin she wears must be a wicked one, “you’re going to tell him the truth, at least a little of it. You tell him it’s because he’s a shithead Lannister, and you and your friends won’t stop coming for him until you get them all.”

 

Rickon is beside himself over figuring out, finally, at least how to infiltrate the Lannisters. It’s not a solution, it’s not the triumphant ending, but at the very least it’s the start, a way in the door to figure out whatever the hell his dad found out before they killed him, his wife, and his son. There is a jitter to his happiness, though, because none of them are P.I.s, none have his dad’s skill set, and he wonders, no he  _fears_  what he has gotten them all mixed up in. So, in classic Rickon form, he shoves those worries away, decides he’ll pick them up and review them at a later date if there comes a need for it.

He is sitting, listening to Sandor and his sister attempt light conversation about the television show they’re all halfheartedly watching, Rickon in between them there on the long sofa in the little TV room, Sandor’s pillow and neatly folded blanket set on the side table. He remembers how he and his siblings would pile up on this couch to watch America’s Funniest Videos, before Robb outgrew it and Sansa decided watching repeated whiffle balls to the nuts wasn’t funny. It’s decidedly emptier now, even with Sandor’s bulk to his left and his sister’s long legs curled up beside him on the right, and that emptiness fuels him. Instead of watching whatever dark comedic show they’re bickering over he chews on the desolation, rolls over and over in his head how it will play out when they finally decide to drop the axe and get this Lannister execution started.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and it’s still a weird notion to him, having gone so long without a cell phone, having no friends anymore save Sandor and his siblings, but he doubts Arya or Bran have his new number. He smiles, though, when he sees it’s a text from Shireen.

                                                                                                                                          I’m in. Let’s do this.

Rickon grins, biting his lip when he remembers her tanned legs stretched out and her feet on the table, the red of her nail polish, the long drape of her hair, the hot temper in her eyes when she thought he was judging her. He stands, excusing himself under the pretense of smoking a cigarette, though he intends to do so, but his destination is not the porch swing, where an old coffee can awaits him in its secondary employment as an ashtray. Instead, Rickon heads upstairs to his room with a fresh beer, pushing up the window and crawling outside onto the roof, where he settles in with a lit cigarette, taking a drag and a swig before pulling out his phone and calling the number instead of answering her with a text.

“Um, hello?” she says though she clearly has his number, clearly knows it’s him before answering, has no reason for hesitation, every ability to not even answer if she doesn’t want to. But while he may think of her legs and her hair and her pretty face, he’s not sure she thinks of him in those ways, not with this heavy situation that hangs like a fat, nasty spider over them all. Her hesitation could be born from this and not from what he suspects is now a one-sided attraction.

“Hey, it’s me, Rickon,” he says, taking another drag and exhaling it into the phone before he can help himself.

“I can practically smell the smoke from here,” she says dryly, and he huffs a chuckle, lying back against the sandpapery shingles, staring up at the sky where the moon hangs in a thick sliver, fragile and curved like a bow, like the fan of a woman’s eyelashes.

“So, you’re in, huh? Ready to take these bastards down?”

“I am, yeah, if you’ve figured out how to do the taking down part,” she says.

“I’ve got an idea. Sansa did it, really, and I’ve uh, I’ve recruited another person to help out,” he says, and she hums her curiosity, and so he tells her the plan so far. She does not interrupt him, but is actually silent for a couple of beats after he’s done, and he can practically hear the shaking of her head when she finally responds.

“Nah, that won’t work.”

“What do you mean, it won’t work?” He is mildly indignant, frustrated to be shot down so soon after takeoff.

“I mean, if you’re going to go off his Facebook. He hasn’t hit those spots in years. So much for the whole private investigator shit being in a person’s blood, huh. Those pictures are from when he was still in college, Joff doesn’t hit up those places anymore, and he’s since set his photos to private. But,” she says, and he hears the flurry of fingers on a keyboard. “Yep, perfect. He seems to have forgotten we were Facebook friends long, long ago, and I can still see where this little shit goes every weekend.”

“Okay, well, tell me then. I mean, text me, I don’t have a pen on me right now, I’m outside.”

“So you don’t smoke in the house, huh?”

“No, I’m on the roof. It may be my house now, but it- no, I couldn’t. I’ll smoke in my mom’s car, maybe, but not in this house. Besides, Sansa would murder me if I made her hair stink.”

“A feeling I share wholeheartedly,” Shireen says. “But I won’t tell you, I’ll show you. I want to be in on this operation, and moping around here is boring. I want to skulk and scheme schemes. I want to be in on the action, so I’ll just log in at your place and we can hunt down this fucker together.”

“Must not have been a very nice cousin,” Rickon says, and Shireen laughs. It’s a dark and twisty and angry laugh, and he could cleave himself to it.

“He used to throw mud at me, telling me it was better than my face. He’d kick my shins for being so ugly and a few times he even spit on me.” Rickon freezes, his hand halfway to his mouth to take another drag off his cigarette.

“He’d  _spit_ on you? He’d throw  _mud_ on you?”

“Yeah, he would.” There’s bitterness to her voice, and he sighs.

“Hey, just so you know, I wasn’t like uh, like  _judging_  you, or anything, the other day at your place. I just, I wasn’t expecting it. I mean, if you could see our new roommate, you’d understand that I don’t, um, I don’t notice that kind of stuff. I mean I did, at first, because you’re so- ah, hell,” he says, sighing. He smokes his cigarette, and even though he takes his time with a very long inhalation, she is silent, waiting, listening. He exhales. “It wasn’t the first thing I noticed and it wasn’t the last, so that’s all I’ll say.”

She is quiet for a few more moments, but then she breathes out a small, tiny, thin little laugh. “Well, your sister said as much, that it wasn’t in you to be that way, to be like  _he_  was. Like he  _is,_ ” she says.

“Tell you what,” Rickon offers, grinning up at the night’s sky as he finishes his cigarette, pushes the butt into the now empty beer bottle. “I’ll punch the little bastard a few extra times for you, whenever I can get my hands on him. How’s that grab you?”

“It grabs me just fine, Rickon, and if you can take a photo of him all bruised and bloody, it’d grab me even better,” and they both laugh, chatting afterwards for several more minutes before he crawls back into his room and downstairs for another beer.

 

 

Chapter title taken from We Insist - Zoe Keating


	6. Special Cases

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SANSAN! SAAAAANSAAAAAAN
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114867520073/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-6-special-cases)

“Look, I’m sorry but I insist. It’s honestly no trouble,” Sansa says, standing one on side of the coffee table, Sandor standing on the other. She has one end of his pillow and he has the other, and they, two fully grown adults, half strangers, are having quite possibly the most ridiculous, most irritating pillow fight ever. She tugs lightly on it, but it doesn’t budge, not when it’s clamped in those massive, strong hands of his.

“I’ll not be the reason you tear up your house,” he says mulishly, and she narrows her eyes at him. His jaw is set and she can see his determination as plain as day, more obvious than even the scars that twist the stubbornness, ever so slightly on the one side.

“It’s my house to tear up,” she retorts. Rickon, who is in the other room with Shireen, heads bent together over her laptop as they stalk Joff Lannister online, pipes up.

“My house, actually,” he shouts cheerfully, and Sansa says _Go to hell, bub_ over her shoulder.

“Anyways,” she says, turning her attention back to Sandor. “Maybe I’m sick of being in my old room. If I move, it would be a waste of a bedroom not to give it to you.”

“Oh aye, and you’ll just move, what, up with your brother, to stare at rock posters and smell the ghosts of sweat socks and jock straps?”

“No,” she says hotly, wrinkling her nose at the imagery. “I’m going to switch to my- I’m going to move into mom and dad’s old room.” It hurts her to say that, to call it their  _old_  room, but there is the truth of it; it’s not theirs anymore, and if Sansa has to pass that shrine of a bedroom on the way to hers one more time, half imagining she’ll see her mother standing there, slipping on her wrist watch, she is going to scream.

“Not bloody likely,” Sandor says, tugging the pillow enough to make her stagger forward from the strength of him, and she just barely avoids cracking her shins on the coffee table. “I know how sorrowful the two of you are, and I’ll not be the reason you torture yourself.”

“Well,  _maybe,_  Sandor, I just want you off my goddamn couch so I can watch TV at night!” she snaps, stepping on top of and over the coffee table, bringing herself in close proximity to him, a closeness that seems to affect them both. Her heart is racing all of a sudden, and he takes a step back from her in clear surprise. She uses this unease to her advantage and with a forceful motion she wrenches the pillow free from his grasp, her torso twisting with the momentum.

He stares at her, his empty hands still up in front of him as if he cannot believe she just wrested the pillow from him, and his look of astonishment is so magnificently comical she bursts into laughter, his pillow clutched to her chest, though she was thoroughly outraged only a moment before. She hears a great rumbling chuckle out of him, and then he’s shaking his head in evident amusement, if not still a tinge of bewilderment, and that makes her proud.

“Well, then, lass, if you’d only said that at the start of it I wouldn’t have kicked up such a fuss,” he says. “Go on then, move into the other room, and I’ll help you. Pay the price for my stupidity, I reckon.”

She grins indulgently, delighted over winning the battle. There is a woodsy, crisp aroma she slowly becomes aware of, and when she drops her chin, she realizes it’s the smell of him, of whatever he uses to wash his hair or his skin, trapped here in the pillow he uses, where he rests his head at night. She inhales deeply, lets the smell overwhelm her before she freezes, realizing what she’s doing.

“I’ll just, ah, here, let me,” he says, gently pulling on the pillow. She feels as if she has been caught snooping or spying or eavesdropping, feels her cheeks burn as she releases the pillow.

“Okay um, cool then. Well, I figure I’ll need some help moving their stuff out but I’ll still use the furniture. We’ll um, we’ll have to paint the walls of my old room, too, unless lilac is your color,” she says with a smile, attempting self-recovery by way of a joke, and he very kindly allows it of her, nodding his head with a slight smile.

“I think I’ll have the paint job,” he says, and she nods, turns, feeling suddenly shy, to go do what she just stated.

An hour later he finds her in her parents’ room – _no, my room –_ sitting on the floor in front of her mother’s dresser, carefully taking the folded clothes and putting them in large black trash bags. It is like a burial with each garment, and her heart is heavy with the task.

“Hello?” He says, rapping his knuckles on the open door.

“Down here,” she says, pausing the music on her iPod, glancing over her shoulder. He is leaning in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, gazing down at her so intently she half turns towards him with a frown, worried there’s a problem. “What’s up?”

“Are you uh, are you all right in here?” he asks, and the concern from this man she barely knows, though they’ve lived under the same roof for a couple of weeks, makes her smile. That in turn makes him visibly uncomfortable. He frowns, comes close to scowling.

“I was just asking,” he mutters defensively, and then she understands. He thinks she mocked him with her smile.  _He must not be used to getting many of those. Not real ones, anyhow,_ so Sansa tries to be careful.

“I know you were, and I’m smiling because I’m okay, but when you asked me, I realized that I still needed someone to ask me, if that makes sense.”

“I think so, though it sounds more like something a woman would say, than a man would,” he says, and she laughs.

“Well, how about this: I could use some company. Rickon is too busy stalking Joff as he scrolls through photos to pay me much attention, plus Shireen is here and they seem to be getting on pretty well.” The invitation takes him aback, and his eyebrows lift, but he shrugs and nods, walking in, not knowing where to sit, decides finally on the desk chair. He is quiet, as she knew he’d be, but somehow his presence is a comfort. She wonders if it was his past confession of doing bodyguard type stuff, and if that feeling just comes with the territory with him.

“It’s a shame,” she sighs, returning to her task, taking out another stack of clothing, resting it in her lap a moment, running a hand over the sweater on top. “She had great taste in clothes, but they’re  _her_  taste, not mine. It feels like a waste, just taking them away.”

“Will you donate them?” He asks. He’s hunched over, forearms on his knees as he watches her.

“Oh yeah, I think she’d like that. Actually, I think she’d be  _pissed_  if I didn’t,” she smiles up at him, finds a small smile waiting for her. The sweater is soft beneath her palm and she shakes it out of its neat fold, holds it up for inspection. “Hmm, I think I might keep this one, actually,” she says, and he snorts a laugh at her fickleness.

He eventually grows bored of the repetition of her work, and by the time she’s moved on to the last drawer he’s gazing with polite aloofness at the stuff on her dad’s desk. She glances at him after several minutes and sees him leaning over, staring at something. When she stands to cinch shut the trash bag, she sees it’s the Grand Canyon photo. She comes to stand beside him, looking down at the photo as well.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” he says with a shake of his head. “It’s barely just happened and you’re, well, you’re fine.”

“I am  _not_  fine,” she says vehemently. “Believe me, I’m not.” Visions of broken plates and shattered glass rise up in her mind’s eye. She should have boxed them up and sent them to the Lannisters.

“Oh yeah, you are. Both you and your brother are, but I suppose that’s to do with having each other. I was not so lucky,” he says. Sansa frowns, backs up until her legs bump the bed, and sits down, staring at him.

“You lost your parents too?” In the two weeks he’s been here, he’s never mentioned it, though the topic of group conversation rarely strays far from the fate of Ned, Cat and Robb Stark, of deceased family, and there has been plenty of opportunity to bring it up.

“Aye, I did, that,” he says with a sigh, and finally he sits up, turns away from the photo, swivels to look at her. He gives her a tight smile and a shrug. “I reckon that’s why I’ve turned out as rough as I have, not having a mother or father.”

“When?” she whispers, realizing with a cold jolt that all four of them, under this roof, she and her brother, Shireen and Sandor, are all orphans. It is such a profoundly sad thought that tears spring to her eyes, much to her exasperation.  _I have cried enough already, for God’s sake,_  she thinks.

“Oh, years ago. I was 8.”

“How? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking,” she says hastily, wiping away the tears before they have a chance to fall.

“You don’t have to ask, lass, the answer’s here,” he says, offering her the right side of his face, tapping his scarred cheek with a thick forefinger. Sansa gasps before she can help herself, hands flying to her mouth.  _A fire, then, and such a horrible, horrible way to go._  She wonders how it happened, who started it, how he alone got out when he was so young, but she is too afraid to ask. They do not know each other that well, not well enough for such prying questions, though they are getting to know each other better.

“Oh my God,” she says as he nods. “Oh my God, that’s  _awful_ , Sandor,” and she is sorely tempted to reach out to try and touch his scars, so hideous and formidable when she first clapped eyes on him, but now they simply seem sad more than anything else, the badge of grief, of damage, of pain. She is tempted, yes, but not fool enough to try it. She is surprised he has shared so much, and is worried he regrets it when he stands abruptly.

“I need a beer, I think,” he says gruffly, heading for the door, broad shoulders hunched up and inwards as if to comfort himself, to protect himself.

“Sandor?” He stops a foot into the hallway and though his right side faces her, he turns to the left instead, glances at her over his left shoulder. It presents her with the good side of his face, the side she recognizes now as a handsome one, if not a little stern and humorless, and just that act makes her heart ache for him, for all he’s clearly been through. It’s so clearly a move, a gesture of self-preservation, protection, one he’s perfected ever since he was a little boy.

“Yes?”

“Will you um, will you come back?” He snorts but he nods, says _Yes,_ and Sansa is quite surprised with herself to realize just how relieved she is to hear it.

 

Shireen shows him the photos and status updates from Joff’s Facebook, and by the time they scroll through the misogynistic bullshit and the endless photos of him sneering into the camera, grabbing girls’ asses and fist bumping with other spiky-haired assholes, Rickon is ready to go punch his lights out right this moment. But it’s only a Tuesday night, and while her horrible cousin certainly has enough money to go out every night of the week, it’s highly doubtful they’ll find him out and about tonight, and besides, they have planning to do.

They are sitting on the couch in the living room, huddled together on the middle cushion, staring at Joff Lannister on Sansa’s laptop which rests on the coffee table. He has poured her a glass of red wine, which she sips on while he drinks a beer, and when Sandor leaves to check on Sansa, the room takes on a comfortably close, cozy atmosphere with its white brick fireplace and the piano against the wall to her right.

It’s a homey, familial place, unlike her and Ren’s house, even the one before the rental, but it’s full of shadows and unspoken words now; when she first came over he took her on a photographic tour of the Starks, along the mantle and down the hallway.  She knows now how Robb was as tall as his father when they died, that Catelyn had long hair like her eldest daughter. She knows that Arya always has a look of amusement on her face; that Bran walks laboriously with a cane from a childhood accident involving a trampoline, prefers to stand in photos as if in defiance of it. And she sees that Rickon, after about nine or ten, always seems as if he is apart from the rest of them; standing to the side, looking away, and in one photo he looks like a ghost, standing as he in in the background, staring dolefully at the camera. She touched that photo when he turned away to get them their drinks, ran her finger down the line of teenaged boy, wishing she could assure him that someone can see him.

 “Ha!” he says, shaking her from her musings, and she blinks, looks to where he carelessly pokes the screen with a long finger. “This idiot,” he says. “He’s totally posted where he’s going next Saturday night. Like he seriously does this every weekend, it’s stupid.”

“Well,” she says, “I don’t think he knows someone is Facebook stalking him with the intention of kicking his ass,” and Rickon chuckles, rolls his eyes and makes a funny face.

“Fair point. He’s going to the Beer Sellar, whatever that is.”

“You’ve never been there?”

“I’ve actually never been to  _any_  bar. I just turned 21, and I happened to be in prison for that birthday.” He is scrolling through, attention fixated on his task, but as she regards him sharply, gazing intently on his profile that’s lit with the blue glow from the computer, he glances her way, double-takes at her look, confused as to what strikes her so unusual.  He shrugs. “Shit happens.”

“You’re telling me  _you_  never had a fake ID? I’m surprised you’re not sitting here telling me that you were the dude who’d make them for everyone.” She can see it with her mind’s eye, Rickon sitting on a toilet seat in a high school bathroom, the open stall his office as boys line up with $50 and an eager gleam in their eyes. She paints the picture for him with her words and he laughs, sitting back away from the computer.

“Oh, that’s hilarious. No, I was not the cool misfit. And no, no fake IDs. My friends and I were the get-drunk-in-dark-parking-lots types. Smoke weed by the underpass, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, so a man of nature, the great outdoors,” she says, sweeping her hand through the air in an arc, and he laughs again.

“Yeah, something like that. So, what, did  _you_  have a fake ID, or are you trying to fill in my blanks with things only ex-cons would do?” He is amused, but there is a challenge there, maybe an accusation of shallowness there. Shireen points out that he  _did_ just tell her he got drunk in parking lots and smoked dope by the underpasses, and he grins with another shrug.

“But no, I didn’t have a fake ID either. I was the get-drunk-on-a-friend’s-mom’s-fine-wine kind of girl, and there was only one friend to speak of. Because of this,” she gestures to her face when he looks at her with a bemused look. His expression darkens.

“That’s just bullshit,” he scoffs, nodding his head towards the bedroom that used to belong to his parents, where Sandor and Sansa are. “Like him. Yeah, it’s unusual at first, but you look past it after that first moment. I don’t get it, why people who are around you every day like, you know, classmates or whatever, don’t just stop seeing it. I don’t see it now, so why do they?”

Shireen smiles slightly, arching a brow at him. It is hard for her to believe that her face honestly does not inspire in him revulsion or repulsion, at the very least a kneejerk shudder or cringe. He is honest and unapologetic, much like Sandor seems to be, but still, it’s bizarre to her, after a lifetime of mean comments and lingering stares. “You’re telling me you’re looking right at me, from two feet away, and you’re somehow not seeing the mess of my face?”

“Oh for chrissakes, Shireen, your face is not a mess. This is like chicks asking if they look fat when they’re skinny as rails,” he says, and she is forced to take that as a compliment, to understand that he means to say she’s pretty, which flatters her beyond anything she’s heard before. Ex-con he may be, but he’s still a good looking guy, with his tousle of dark, messy hair and his blue eyes, his strong jaw and cheekbones. A compliment is a compliment, but it’s always more delicious to get it from someone who is easy on the eyes. She hears Sansa laugh from the bedroom and knows,  _knows_  Sandor is likely sitting there, fighting the urge to grin and blush, to fan himself with a hand to be so blessed by being the source of a beautiful woman’s delight.

“So, you were in prison for your birthday.” She turns to face him, propping her left elbow on the back of the sofa, tucking a leg beneath her as she twists. He follows suit, somewhat, scooting away from her to rest his back in the crook of the sofa’s arm and its back, his right arm outstretched on the top of the sofa back. His limbs are long on account of his height, and his fingers nearly graze her elbow. He is unreadable, there in his eyes, but there is a guard up, and so she tries to tread carefully.

“Yep. I was.” He tries to play it nonchalant, but she can tell that he is tense; he looks back at her without hesitation, but his eyes seem harder, tighter, and not the amused looseness from before. It makes her realize he’s a hard guy to sum up.

“Okay,” she says slowly, unsure of how to ask. She’s never been around someone who’s been in prison, and her curiosity is rearing up inside her like an unbroken horse. It’s strange; he doesn’t  _look_  like a jailbird, and this home of his doesn’t seem like the flop house or shit-wreck she’d attribute to someone who spent a lot of time in prison. So she just asks. “What for?”

“Murder. Rape. Kidnapping.” He replies coldly, deadpan, his face an expressionless mask. It takes her breath away, and she stamps down the urge to gasp and lean away from him. It reminds her that she does not know him well, does not know  _any_  of them well, or hardly at all, really, but here she sits, drinking a glass of wine with a man fresh out of prison –  _No, two of them –_ but then Rickon tosses his head back and laughs.

“God, I really had you there for a minute,” he says. “Jesus, Shireen, you think I’d only get six months for all that?”

“Well I didn’t know how long you were in there,” she says with a huff, sitting up from her sideways recline to cross her arms.  She glares at him, but it only amuses him more. Rickon shakes his head.

“And you think my sister, sweetness herself, would just let you waltz into a den of rapists and murderers?”

“Well, I don’t know, maybe  _she’s_  one as well,” Shireen snaps.

“She’s one of what?” Sansa asks, emerging out of nowhere like the lady in the lake, Sandor lurking behind her like an living, breathing gargoyle, a large, heavy looking trash bag in his arms.

Rickon waves his sister off, gets up briefly to get her another trash bag by way of helping her taking away their parents’ belongings. Shireen sips her wine as he goes into the kitchen, gazing at the other scarred person in the room as the unlikely pair goes out the front door, presumably to put the bag in her car.

When Rickon returns he brings the bottle of red, refills her glass to a little more than halfway, and then he sits, ready to lean over and stare and glare at Joff’s social media.

“So,” she says softly, and he huffs out a chuckle, shaking his head, scratching his scalp, knowing what she asks. Rickon sighs, shakes his head again.

“It’s impossible, isn’t it, not knowing,” he says, hunches over his legs, turning his face to look over his shoulder at her, and there is hurt in his eyes. Hot, churning hurt. “It’s all you can see, isn’t it? Is that my chicken pox scar, Shireen? Prison? Time served? The mystery of whatever evil I did?”

“Rickon, I’m sorry,” she says, at once embarrassed, feeling like such a massive, hypocritical fool. Of course she of all people should back off, but it didn’t hit her until now how one way or another, everyone gets the stink eye, everyone gets that look, the expression of aborted effort, because that person has decided you are not worth more than your physical deformity or your checkered past. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats lamely.

“Skip it, it’s nothing,” he says, words hard and clipped short, tossed her way like crumbs to a bird. He turns back to the laptop, so she leans over and rests a hand on his knee. He starts, looks down at her hand, and then to her. His eyes are guarded, and she feels like an idiot. After giving him all that hell at Renly’s, here she’s doing it to him, making him feel small, judged, making him feel like that in his own home. So she takes the curiosity over his prison sentence, of whatever crime he did to get himself there, and she pulverizes it, crushes it to nothing and throws it away, and hopes he’ll give her the chance to see the other things, to fill in his blanks with things that are about  _him_  and not about what he’s  _done._

“I won’t ask again, Rickon, I swear to God. Seriously, I don’t care. You’re more than a prison sentence, you’re more than a single mistake, and I see past that, I do. I was just curious, is all.”

He gives a half smile and looks at her hand again, which is still on his leg, and she snatches it back hastily, puts it around her glass of wine instead, bringing it to her mouth for another sip. She watches him over the glass as he looks back to the screen, and is equal parts delighted and mortified to see a slow, knowing smile slide into place on his mouth.

 

Sansa tells him about her parents, as he sits and watches her, helping finally by holding open the garbage bag whenever she has a stack of her father’s clothes ready. He wonders why he came back to her room, wonders why he stays, wonders why he’s listening, why he’s helping her.  _It’s because I am living under her roof, it is because she’s clearing out her space to make room for me,_  he tells himself, ignoring the fact that he shares with her nearly as much as she shares with him.

Eddard, who always went by Ned, he learns, was a quiet, studious, self-taught man, who would be found reading a book in the very chair Sandor himself sits out, as often as he’d be found cleaning his gun or teaching the boys how to fish. He was a loving father, very much the ideal in his eldest daughter’s eyes. Catelyn, who went by Cat, inspired Sansa to play the piano, and they would play side by side as Sansa sang during their annual Christmas Eve parties. She was, as Sansa has said before, a smart dresser and would accept no talk back from any of them, even Arya, even Rickon, though they both did their damnedest to challenge her.

She asks lightly about his parents, and he tells her what he can remember. His father was a stoic man, not around a lot because he worked two jobs to make ends meet, but kind enough when he was home, though he was always tired, faded around the edges by that time of day. His mother was a petite woman, fine boned like a bird – “Not unlike yourself, there,” he said gruffly, making her eyebrows raise and the corner of her mouth curl up like a wisp of smoke – and she would read half a dozen books to him at bed time, though his brother would refuse that luxury every night.

“You have a brother?” she asks, head tipping to the side.

“That- No, I can’t talk about that,” he says, his words a knife the way they slice into and stop the conversation, but she nods, does not seem offended. She knows pain as well as he, maybe not as  _much_ , but worse for the freshness of it, and so she does not press him, and for that he’s grateful.

The family talk fades, and Sandor is left to his own thoughts as she briefly leaves to get a small box for her mother’s finer jewelry, the stuff, she says, she’d never wear. This sudden opening up between them confuses him, and he wonders if he should blame it on the Starks; Rickon was easy enough to get on with in prison, and their interesting friendship has not changed now that they are both out, which can happen easily enough with any relationship forged behind bars. And now his sister, his stunning, sweet tempered sister, was just sitting cross legged on the floor a few feet from him, asking about his life as if she cared.

“Your mom sounds super sweet,” she says, coming in from the hall, startling him out of his thoughts by handing him an opened beer. He takes it, stares at, nods his thanks, but then he just can’t handle it anymore.

“Why do you care?” Her head snaps up, attention tearing from the jewelry box on the dresser as she stares at him. “I mean, come on, look at me. Do you actually care?”

“Excuse me?” Sansa turns to face him in full, squinting at him as if trying to make him out clearer.

“You don’t know me from Adam. I’m some ugly guy with a record, squatting in your house, and you’re acting like you give a shit. I just, I don’t know why.”

“Are you kidding me? First off, you’re paying us rent now, so squatting is a term that doesn’t apply.” Sandor rolls his eyes at the vocabulary lesson, and she puts her hands on her hips, glaring at him. “But more importantly, it’s because you’re a  _person_ ,” she says, a nip to her words. “It doesn’t matter that I don’t know you, Sandor, you’re still a human being. And to be honest, I thought we  _were_  getting to know each other. I thought we were trying to become  _friends._ Jesus,” she says with emphasis, shaking her head. “Men, I swear.”

“I just wondered, is all,” he mutters.

“Yeah, well, now you know,” she snaps over her shoulder as she turns back to her task. He wonders if he should leave, is stuck between the feeling that he should and the fact that she’s as angry as a wet cat and stands between him and the doorway. They are silent for several moments, and he bows his head over the beer in his hands, rolling the cold bottle between his palms. Her back is turned to him, but even so he can hear the sharp inhalation of a woman’s gasp, the shuddering sigh as the breath is released, and he hears the sob there, too.

“Oh God,” she whispers, and Sandor looks up. Her head hangs forward, that glorious hair of hers hanging down on either side of her face, a long lock of it spilling down the center of her back, and her spine curves as she rests her hands on the dresser.

“What’s wrong? Sansa?” he asks, her name tasting like foreign spices on his tongue. He has never uttered it before. He stands, takes a few steps towards her.

“Their wedding bands,” she says. “They weren’t wearing them when they were- when the bodies were- when they were cremated. I thought they were. I can’t believe I never noticed.” Their squabble forgotten, she lifts her hands from the dresser and turns. She holds up a gold band in each hand, pinched between forefingers and thumbs, one large, the other delicate. “They’d want to have them, right? God, I can’t believe I didn’t notice. I can’t believe I let them go without their rings,” and she looks right at him, right into his eyes, and he sees the shattered remains of her heart grinding into dust there, just before the tears drown out the vision and her eyes squeeze shut. “Fuck, I’m a horrible daughter,” she sobs, the rings dropping into her palms, where she squeezes them until her knuckles turn white.

“Hey,” he says, not knowing what to do. There is a lovely woman falling to pieces in front of him, the wedding rings of her dead parents in her hands, and he stands there, frozen in time; give him a foe wielding a baseball bat or a lead pipe, he knows what to do. Give him  _this,_  and he is like a deer in headlights. She is crying so intensely the sobs are silent, though the tears flow freely enough. They run down her cheeks and he can see them drip from her jaw, illuminated like crystal from the low lamplight in the room. Sandor would brush them from her face if he could, but he cannot, absolutely he cannot, though he knows for certain that it wounds something very real and private in him, to see this woman cry. “Sansa, I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, answering him in some inexplicable way, but then she stuns him by walking into his chest, and he is left no other option but to put his arms around her as she sobs her heart out. He feels the tears through his t-shirt in no time, the warmth of her hair as he rests a hand on the back of her head, and he is utterly flabbergasted.  _Comfort her, you bloody daft bastard,_ but then the next thought he has is  _How? How the fuck do I do that?_ He can only try, and so he does.

“A lot of ah, a lot of people who have been married a long time don’t place as much importance on the rings.  Uh, you know, they don’t feel the need to prove it to the world by wearing the rings all the time. S’why I’m sure they weren’t wearing them when they, you know, at the time.”

A wrenching sob, muffled against his chest, quakes out of her, and he curses himself. Sandor rewraps his arms around her, closer this time, and tries again, his eyes closing as he digs deep.

“I cannot see any mother or father wanting such treasures to be burned along with them, not when there are children to receive such things. Really Sansa, they’d want you to have them. You and Rickon. I don’t think you should give this jewelry stuff of your parents away, either. Divvy it between you. I uh, I have nothing of my mother. Nothing of my father, and I very much wish I did.”

 _There, you bloody fool. The truth. That works._  Because she calms down as he speaks, sobs abating to hoarse hiccups and sniffles, and he nearly chuckles to think that he effectively wears a handkerchief now instead of a shirt.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, voice thick, sounding as if she has a cold, she cried so hard. “I’m sorry, I’m not- I’m just not myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

“No, lass, you won’t. You’ll be someone different, after what’s happened, but you’ll be stronger for it, too.”

“I don’t  _feel_  strong,” she says with a bitter, watery laugh.

“You’re grieving, and allowed to at that. You’re uh,” he falters.  _Christ on the cross,_   _what do I say?_ So he pulls something from nothing, his memories and thoughts as fleeting as they are. Seaside visits with his grandparents before they died, before he went into foster care. A mason jar he’d kept, full of seashells, until a fellow foster kid threw it into the street where they were all crushed by a car. “You’re like driftwood, right? Salt water makes it strong. Like tears. They’ll make you strong, if you let them.” Oh, he feels like a bloody fool, but there it is. He tried his best.

She lifts her head and he looks down at her when he feels the movement, their eyes locking, and he is very,  _very_  aware of how close they are, and how his arms are still around her. He lets her go reluctantly, now that she’s stopped crying, and she takes her time, stepping back, hugging herself in his absence, and he curses himself for making his arms fall from around her. It felt good comforting her, it felt good holding her, and it felt good, stopping her tears.

“That was kind of poetic, Sandor. Are you a poet?” She looks up at him, cheeks still wet, a weak smile on her face. He barks out a laugh before he can help himself.

“Oh aye, you should’ve seen the walls of my old cell, scribbled over with poems of Scottish heather and windswept glens,” and that makes her laugh, and later that night, trying to sleep on the sofa, long after Shireen has left and the others are asleep, Sandor replays the sound of it in his mind, over and over again, until he falls asleep, dreaming of red haired mermaids and driftwood on the shore.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Special Cases - Massive Attack


	7. Give Up On Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114959700783/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-7-give-up-on-ghosts)

“I don’t see why she has to be there,” Sandor says gruffly, jerking his head towards Sansa, and Rickon sighs. He no longer wonders at why the scarred older man calls himself a dog; he’s never seen a more stubborn guard dog in his life. He rubs his temple and when a server brushes past, he silently asks for more tea by holding up his empty cup. They are sitting at a table in a Chinese restaurant down the road from their house on Friday night, and the drumming of the rain on the low roof of the building adds to the coziness and conspiratorial feel in the dimly lit place.

“We’ve been over this,” Rickon says. “It’s because this little shit is more than likely to go out bar hopping with a bunch of his friends. Sansa’s going to make sure he leaves his buddies behind and leaves the bar by himself. I can handle myself in a fight, but not against a pack of wild frat boy wannabes. I’d get my ass handed to me, in pieces. She’s perfect for it. Bats her lashes, tosses her hair around, he’ll be like putty in her hands. He’ll go wherever she wants.”

“Why, thank you, little brother,” Sansa says, lifting a hand to her heart as if deeply touched.

“Don’t mention it,” Rickon grins, inclining his head gallantly. Sansa drops the hand from her chest, resting it a moment on one of Sandor’s forearms, folded as they are on the edge of the table, to get his attention. Rickon hides a smirk as she snares it immediately;  _Doesn’t even have to bat her lashes, not with Sandor,_  he thinks. He is amused by how his sister mellows out their roommate, but then, there’s likely more than a little attraction there, and Rickon is not altogether sure it is one sided. She seeks Sandor out more than her own brother, these days, for help with moving furniture, with rearranging it, with any sort of typical “boy job,” as she calls it.

“Look, Sandor, it’s all right, I want to help. Plus it kind of makes me feel like a badass,” she says with a grin, making everyone laugh. “I’ll be like Black Widow.”

“Well,  _I_ want to be a badass,” Shireen says with a mock sulk. “I want to be like Black Widow.”

“You are honey, trust me,” Rickon says, shaking his head and rolling his eyes, and Shireen scoffs. She is the only one who will not be out there in the fray, being Joff’s cousin and therefore recognizable, but she has graciously offered to drive Rickon and Sansa’s getaway car, though since Joff knows her dad’s old Cherokee, she will take the Starks' 4Runner.

“Damn right I am, and don’t you forget it,” she says, popping a shard of fortune cookie in her mouth, grinning at him with her eyebrows raised, and Rickon tries, and fails, to hide his smile. She is sharp and shiny like a gemstone, he often thinks, and her feisty nature keeps him up at night.

“I still don’t like it. What if he recognizes her?” _Stubborn Sandor,_ Rickon thinks, tearing his eyes from Shireen to look at his friend, ready to answer, but Sansa interrupts him.

“There’s no way. I told you, I’ve been in California for a decade. I have never laid eyes on him in my life, and I didn’t even know who the Lannisters were. I highly doubt they’ll know me, since I came into town  _after_  they killed my family.”

“Your hair, though,” Sandor says. “If he ever sees you out and about, with Shireen or even Rickon after tomorrow night, he’d know something was up.”

“I said I’ll dye it,” she says with a shrug, making Sandor grumble in defeat, arms folded across his chest as he slouches in his seat. “They’ve got temporary hair dye, Shireen can help me.”

Shireen, seated to Sansa’s left, picks up a lock of his sister’s hair. “You’re going to need at least three boxes, maybe four. This stuff goes halfway to your ass,” and Sandor chokes on his ice water, making the two women giggle like school girls before putting their heads together to discuss Sansa’s new hairdo.

Rickon sits back, observing this motley crew who is becoming more and more like a group of true friends. Aside from his ongoing job search, the four of them have spent nearly each evening together, and while he’s secretly pleased to be getting closer to Shireen, he’s even happier that Sansa has done so as well, can call Shireen a friend. It makes it easier to find excuses to invite her over, as he can blame it on Sansa for needing female companionship, although more often than not he and Shireen find themselves sitting in his room, looking through his old books and papers, which is how he finds out she has her master’s, and while it intimidates the hell out of him it also impresses him, has persuaded him try reading again, and his father’s copy of _The Old Man and the Sea_ is currently dog-eared and on his nightstand.

The tea arrives and their mostly empty dishes are taken away, and they sip away the pot of perfumed stuff while they talk, though there is now more conversation about beauty products and fun ways to dye hair than there is of tomorrow’s move against Joff, of making sure everything goes to plan. It is the eve of their first strike against the Lannisters, and as he thinks about that, about how it’s there, looming on the horizon, and of how intimate a role he is to play, Rickon starts to regret sucking down all this caffeine. It will be hard enough to sleep as it is, though he supposes it will be late tomorrow night before anything happens, and he can always take a nap –  _what did Sansa used to call them? Disco naps_ – before they go out, tracking his movements with every Instagram photo and Facebook update with which he seems to document his shallow, hedonistic lifestyle.

“Ric? Rickon. Earth to Rickon,” Sansa says, waving her hand in front of his face. “I got the check, and Shireen and I still need to go to Walgreens, so I think we better go.”

He gives himself a shake and nods, scooting his chair back to stand, and as Sandor reaches for the back of his sister’s chair, so does he take the back of Shireen’s.

“Gee, who’d have thought they’d teach such manners to guys in the clink,” Shireen says dryly, and even Sandor chuckles at that. Before their talk on the couch the other day he would’ve taken it personally, but he grins instead because he understands now; they have an understanding about each other, and he is able to relax around her in ways he hasn’t been able to in a long time.

Sandor and Rickon opt to walk back home, since it’s not even a mile away, and for several moments they stand awkwardly in front of Shireen’s car. He’s oddly happy to note that’s it more than a little broken in, that when his sister opens the passenger side door, there’s a water bottle, cd case and a phone charger on the floor, that it smells like perfume and other girly smells, and not like new leather.

“Are you sure y’all don’t want a ride?” Shireen asks, looking back at him over her shoulder. “It’s still raining.”

“Barely,” he says with a smile, and so she shrugs.

“Suit yourself, tough guy,” she smirks, hopping up into her seat, lifting her hips up, arching her lower back in order to pull her low slung jeans back up, and he catches a glimpse of black lace and a tan line, and Rickon thinks he might have a heart attack. It’s been  _that_ long, and he stretches his fingers out at his sides as if to cast out the urge to reach over, to run his finger along the lacy edge, to reorient himself with that sensation. She catches him watching and raises an eyebrow, and now it is his turn to smirk, dropping his gaze to the sidewalk beneath his chucks.

“Walk safe, boys,” Sansa says through the rolled down window, after Sandor closes her door for her, and now Rickon wishes he thought of that. But Shireen has already started the car, pulls her seatbelt across her body and lap, securing it with a click he sees but cannot hear. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, to start my transformation,” and his sister fluffs her hair with a touch of the dramatic, batting her lashes as Shireen arcs away from them in a U-turn down the rain-soaked street, and Rickon and Sandor head down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

He lights a post-meal cigarette, grateful the rain is now just the slightest of drizzles, runs his fingers through his hair to shake the drops out that have already fallen, though it’s fruitless to do so before they even get home. But he is fidgety from the tea and because of tomorrow, and clearly cannot hide the latter fact.

“You nervous, yet?” Sandor asks. A car heads their way and they both sidestep, without stopping, into the wet grass of someone’s front yard, narrowly avoiding the spray of rain water that spatters onto the sidewalk as the car slices through a puddle.

“Yeah,” he admits, inhaling a lungful of smoke, looking at the cherry of his cigarette a long moment before glancing to his friend. “I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“I’ve seen you fight, I doubt you will,” he says. “And judging by how he looks in his photos, I doubt he’ll even get a single punch in. But it’s good to be nervous and I’d call you a fool if you weren’t. This is a pretty big thing we’re about to attempt, mate. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’ve never tried anything like this before. I have no idea how it’s going to play out, what’s going to happen, or if any one of us might get hurt. I hope it works out, and I hope we all come out clean, but, just bear it in mind, eh?”

“Trust me, I do. I wonder if this is all worth it, if we’ll get anywhere other than back in jail. But I can’t just sit around and do nothing. Plus I’ve gotten Sansa’s blood up, her hopes up too, and I don’t want to let her down.”

“Neither do I,” Sandor mutters, and when Rickon eyes him sharply, eager to glimpse the expression the bigger man wears, he turns away, looking out across the street away from Rickon, who grins with a shake of his head. He wants to rib him, to mess with him a little bit, because for  _Rickon_  to pick up on this sort of shit, but for his  _sister_  to be oblivious to it, is like pulling a sweater inside out.

“Anyways,” Rickon says, sweeping the moment under the rug for the time being. “Thanks again, man, for helping out.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sandor says. “I’m only disappointed I don’t get to beat someone up, too.”

“Ah, well. You and Shireen can be Black Widow and Captain America next time I guess,” and Sandor laughs, a loud sharp thing that echoes in the dark, drizzly night. “What?”

“You, thinking of yourself as Captain America,” Sandor says.

 

They didn’t leave the restaurant until 9:30, and though she and Sansa try to hurry, picking and choosing over the slew of choices in the hair dye section of Walgreens, it’s a quarter past ten before they finally get back to Sansa and Rickon’s house. There they find the two men sitting on opposite ends of the sofa in the TV room, the white and blue flickers from the TV illuminating them, living bookends in identical repose: slouched with beers in their hands, long legs outstretched and feet propped up on either end of the coffee table. It makes both women laugh, and they are pointedly ignored on their way back to Sansa’s room.

Sansa is easy to talk to; maybe it has to do with the situation they’ve thrown themselves into, but Shireen doesn’t think so. She’s not so much younger than Sansa, being 26, and thinks if only they’d met in college, she could have found a true friend there. But Sansa was at UCSD while Shireen went to school here at Vanderbilt, and so this bourgeoning friendship has had to wait, this ease of conversation and laughter maybe all the richer for it.  _We both need laughter these days, more than any other before._

Sansa’s hair is long, and this will take a good amount of time, so they get down to work immediately. “Here, we can do it in my parents’- I mean,  _my_  bathroom, just in case the guys have to go pee or something,” Sansa says as Shireen sits on her bed, back turned to the redhead as she peels off her shirt and throws on an old one. It’s faded through and holey in spots, though of course she’s still lovely to look at, and Shireen represses a jealous sigh.  _Fucking chicken pox._

“Thank you for helping me, I know it’s going to take forever and you’re going to get home  _so_  late, but I don’t trust those guys to do my hair. The last hair style my brother was devoted to was shaving off his mohawk to go completely bald. No thank you,” she laughs, running a brush through her hair as she sits on the toilet seat.

“And what about Sandor?” Shireen asks with a grin as she mixes up the hair dye over the sink, her small hands drowning in the loose, filmy plastic gloves, making her feel clumsy.

“Well, I am not sure if he has much experience either,” Sansa says, pondering it seriously, making Shireen bite back a laugh. Sansa takes care when her thoughts turn to him. “But I’m going to say, no. No, I think I’ll go with you, madam stylist.”

“I always wanted to do hair, you know. I used to dye mine all the time, and what few friends I had in college, I would do theirs too. I’m pretty good with a pair of scissors as well, but it was insisted that I go to college.”

“Where’d you go?”

Shireen tells her after she instructs Sansa to straddle the toilet tank so she can start. She tells her that she got her master’s in English after starting college early, at 16, though she keeps to herself the reasons why; she explains how she could teach school because of it, but just doesn’t feel that interested anymore. “It just doesn’t call to me anymore. It was wonderful, losing myself in tales and stories for six years, literally hiding my face in the books sometimes,” she muses, smiling sadly. Those books were her friends, those essays and dissertation her diaries into which she poured her heart, but now it all just reminds her of solitude and loneliness.

“I was an English major too,” Sansa says, words muffled as she inclines her head, chin tucking close to her chest as Shireen squeezes the dye along her roots on the back of her neck. “Not a master’s, though, and I did  _not_  go to college at 16, but I enjoyed it. I worked for a lawyer after school, though, and never did much plot exploration or discussion of themes much afterwards,” she says.

“We could go work in a coffee shop or a bar somewhere with the rest of our kind,” Shireen says, and Sansa laughs. They fall into a companionable silence for a time, until Shireen runs out of the chocolate brown color and has to hastily open another box and mix up the dye before continuing.

“So, you and Ric are getting to be friends,” Sansa says, and Shireen pauses fractionally before continuing to work the dye through Sansa’s hair. She’s glad no one else can feel how fast her heart is beating; Rickon Stark started out as just a cute bad boy, but now she knows the sweet side, the sad side, and beyond it all the determined bite to him that thrills her. “I’m glad. I was worried he botched any attempt at friendship the day we all met.”

“Oh!  _That_ ,” she says with a laugh. “Yeah, well. I feel sort of dumb, now, because I kind of gave him the same sort of treatment over his um, you know, prison time or whatever. I realized I was sort of focusing on that instead of everything else. Here, lift your head up again, like that.”

“Well,” Sansa says to the ceiling, vivid blue eyes blinking thoughtfully. “You know, in a way it’s a  _little_  different, because Rickon got what he deserved, acting out like a complete jackass,” she says. “But I know what you mean, and I appreciate you seeing past it, seeing him for who he is. He’s a great guy. A little young,” Sansa says lightly, and Shireen wonders if that’s a warning, if there is a  _Stay away from my baby brother_  hidden there somewhere. “But he’s grown up a lot faster than the rest of us, a lot harder, and I guess all things considered, it’s probably a miracle he’s only been to prison once.”

“Mm,” Shireen says thoughtfully, working her way through the third and then at last the fourth bottle of hair color, clipping up the portions that are already saturated and thick from the dye as she makes her way around Sansa’s head. Finally, her fingers sore from rubbing and working and mixing, they’re finished, and there is only an inch or so of dye left in the little plastic bottle. “Better turn around and let me do your brows. Or will you just fill them in with an eyebrow pencil?”

“Ah, eyebrow pencil,” Sansa says hastily, making Shireen laugh, and at last Sansa is able to stand, stretching her long limbs as she gets up on her toes, fingers nearly grazing the bathroom ceiling.

“You look like a dancer,” Shireen says, impressed, and Sansa turns, graceful even with a bunch of slimy looking brown goop on her head. She pliés, making a funny face, before immediately dropping the ballerina grace and walking out of the bathroom, Shireen following suit. Both women flop simultaneously on the bed, on their stomachs so Sansa won’t smudge dye all over the coverlet, and hold their chins in their hands as they lounge side by side.

“It’s because I was, a long time ago. Some things you can’t forget, even though, gosh, what was it, sophomore, junior year that I quit?”

“Why’d you stop?”

“I got too tall, and none of the male dancers could lift me without it looking ridiculous. I did solo stuff for a while, but eventually I lost interest. Plus it was murder on my feet. I miss it though, and sometimes I’ll throw some moves into a workout, just for kicks.” They pass the allotted time it takes the dye to set by chatting, and to Shireen’s amusement, Sansa brings the conversation around to Sandor without Shireen so much as saying a word. 

“It’s so weird being in this room, having all of my things in it now, and most all of my parents’ stuff gone. It felt almost like sacrilege, going through it all, and I couldn’t even keep my dad’s desk over there,” she says, pointing with a finger to the corner of the room where an old armchair sits, the one, she says, she dragged in from her old bedroom. “I let Sandor have the desk, and it’s in his room, now. So I guess we sort of traded? Although I’m not sure he minded, since it’s a floral chair,” she smiles. “He was so nice about it, me moving my parents stuff out of here. Stayed with me, talked with me, and then when I was crying, I um, hmm,” she says with a smile, trailing off to nowhere, and then snaps her fingers. “Damn, we still need to pick out some paint for his room.”

Shireen smiles at the “we,” thinking a man like Sandor, who apparently works in construction now, can find his way around the paint section of Home Depot by himself. She waits a few moments, hoping to hear more, but Sansa seems lost in her thoughts, and then the egg timer they brought in from the kitchen goes off with a metallic  _brrring._

She sits on the edge of the tub while Sansa washes out the dye, helping her maneuver the handheld showerhead around the nape of her neck, agitating the dye out with her bare fingers, standing up to rinse her hands when Sansa is done. Shireen stands back to critique her hard work: It’s wet, and likely darker for it, but the color makes Sansa’s pale skin stand out even more, and her blue eyes pop like two flowers in a field of snow. It comes close to washing her out, but the former redhead is saved from that fate. Shireen nods her approval, and Sansa smiles, gazing into the mirror.

“I think I want a shower after all that. Plus I still feel kind of greasy from all that Chinese,” she says with a grin, and Shireen, who more than understands, gives her some privacy, hugging her good night and closing her bedroom door behind her. Sandor and Rickon are still watching television when she exits the hall and glances into the little TV room, or rather, one is while the other, the younger, is asleep, head tipped to the side, away from the lamp on the end table to his right, and Shireen bites her lip to see him;  _he may be the baby brother, but he looks all grown up to me._

“Is it really so late?” She asks, gesturing to Rickon. Sandor looks briefly at him, shrugs, turns back to the television.

“He took a Benadryl. Is your beauty salon closed for the night, then?” Sandor says with a glance to her, and Shireen quickly looks away from Rickon.

“Yeah, the customer is all done, just washing up after the ordeal. It looks good, for what it’s worth. It’s not really that bad, and it’s temporary, remember.”

“What do I care?” he says gruffly, swigging from his beer.

“I just, you know, I just can tell you like the red a lot more, that’s all.” He’s slow to react, but he does, she can see it even in the low light from the television, which he shuts off after a few beats. Sandor sighs, and shrugs. It’s irritable and closed off, and she wonders if they will ever be friends.

“Yeah, I do. Who wouldn’t?”

Shireen smiles and folds her arms across her chest as she leans against the jamb of the wide entryway between TV room and living room. “Well she’s still pretty; gorgeous, even with the darker color. I wish I could look that good, even with a dye job out of a box.”

Sandor laughs, shaking his head, draining his beer. He glances to Rickon, sees that his bottle is dangerously close to pouring out its contents on the sofa cushion, he is that slack with sleep. Sandor takes it lightly, leans forward with a grunt and sets both bottles on the coffee table.

“You’re better off in that department than most; I don’t care what’s going on with your face right there,” he says, sitting back and looking at her, giving her his full attention. It’s a blunt, honest look without grace or apology, but she does not quail under it. “And you’re a bloody light year ahead of  _me_ , so don’t pity yourself too much. This young pup over here spends plenty of time with his eyes on you and his ears pricked up whenever you enter or leave the room, so take that for whatever it’s worth.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” she retorts, doing her best to ignore the flare of hope at his words, raising her eyebrows at his expression of sheer shock. “Oh, yeah, buddy. I saw her hand on your arm at dinner, light as a butterfly, as if you two have been cozy for years and  not just a matter of weeks. She talks easily enough of you, too. Seems you give her a lot of comfort.”

Sandor makes a growling sort of sound, and Shireen wonders if she’s made him mad, but she sees a look of sad resignation of his face, as exasperated as his tone may sound. “Look, Shireen, I will take what I can get, when it’s thrown my way, but there is no way,  _no fucking way,_  a woman like that would ever be interested in a man like me.”

They regard each other, and it amuses Shireen, in a sad, damp, dark little way, how they are mirrors of one another, scars on her left, on his right, how they also seem to have in common the scars on the inside that are like the roots of the physical, the niggling, pitiful, hateful roots that wriggle and burrow from the scars all the way down into the heart. They squeeze and they puncture and they suffocate.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she says finally, pushing off from the jamb with her shoulder blades. “Have a good night, Sandor,” and she turns, lifts her purse off the little table in the corner by the front door.

“Good night, Shireen,” he says, and what little fight was in his voice before is gone. He sounds tired, and he sounds sad, and Shireen thinks maybe in time they’ll be friends, going by how much they have in common.

She descends the handful of cement steps to the walkway that divides the manicured little lawn into two neat squares, is nearly to her car and has already unlocked it when the door creaks opens behind her. Shireen turns, half expecting to see Sansa in a bathrobe with blow dried hair, ready to show it off, but it is her brother instead. Rickon stands there in his bare feet, ruffling the hair on the back of his head, and she can see in the porch light that he is bleary eyed. He takes the steps towards her and, unable to help herself, she retraces the few steps needed to close the distance between them.

“You left without saying goodbye,” he says, voice all rocks and marbles from interrupted slumber, and his words tug on her heart, but when he smiles shyly, sleepily at her, Shireen thinks of late morning sunshine, of rumpled Sunday morning sheets and black tea with honey and milk, all at once, and it takes her breath away for a moment before she recovers herself.

“Well, you drugged yourself before I had a chance,” she ribs lightheartedly, but she frowns when he ducks his head, nodding.

“Yeah, I did. ‘m nervous ‘bout tomorrow,” he says, mumbling with fatigue, and his hand is in his hair again, raking the tousle of it away from his eyes. “You know, tomorrow night.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shireen says, suddenly reluctant to part from him so soon, nodding towards the steps he just descended, and he looks back over his shoulder before shrugging, shy still.

“Sure,” and he takes the stairs to the porch swing where he pats the bench of it with his hand in silent invitation before outstretching his arms along the top of the swing’s back. Shireen hugs herself and follows him, taking the proffered place on his left, and they sit side by side in silence for a moment.

“So, you’re nervous,” she says softly after a while, and he nods. She turns her body to face him, tucking a leg beneath her, ballet flat tucked in the crook of her other knee. The foot on the ground is effectively lifted off of it, and soon Rickon rocks them gently back and forth, long legs splayed slightly as he braces his bare feet on the concrete in order to swing them. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

He smiles, glancing to her, and shakes her head. “It feels good, and it’s helping me stay awake. I guess I shouldn’t have taken a Benadryl.”

“I’m sorry; you’re probably halfway passed out right now. I should go,” she says, but then Rickon takes his arm off the swing and lays his hand on her shoulder, staying her movement.

“Please don’t. I uh, it’s nice to be able to talk to someone.”

“So talk, honey,” she says, using his tongue-in-cheek pet name, and he laughs, a scratchy, drowsy laugh before sighing, and she is all too aware that his hand is still on her shoulder

“I don’t want to fuck it up. Sandor said earlier that it’s good I’m nervous but I’m scared the nerves’ll make me misstep. Or mispunch, I guess I should say. Or what if his buddies come out? What if they follow him and Sansa? I feel like there’s so many holes to this idea, and it makes me second guess everything.” He gives her a sheepish look, and she copies his gesture, resting her hand on his shoulder, her forearm draped on top of his bicep. He is _warm_ through his long sleeved shirt, and it’s no longer a wonder that he’s in his bare feet, suffering no consequences for it even in October.

“It’s a good idea, Ric. It really is. Trust me, Joff’s the kind of guy to ditch his friends for a girl, so they’ll be in no hurry to follow him. And Sandor will be there, Sansa will be there, and so will I, however far away.”

“You’ll be the getaway driver,” he murmurs, as if something just dawned on him, and he stares into nothing, says _huh,_ to himself with a faded, faraway smile, and she wonders if he took one allergy pill or two. “Sorry,” he says, coming back to the conversation, however muzzily. “I’ve been in fights before, a _lot_ of them, actually, but never like, calculated ones, never planned out. It’s like uh, you know, freestyling versus learning a bunch of dance moves or whatever. So I’m scared I’ll mess it up, because I’m not going to go in there and let instinct take over. I have to be careful. I’m not the kind of guy who is careful in fights, Shireen. And I’m kind of the fuck up of the family.” He lifts his hand from her shoulder, and she’s disappointed for a moment before he bends his arm to rest his cheekbone on his closed fist, effectively pinning her arm to his, trapping her hand to stay on his shoulder. She is left to wonder if he did it on purpose, or if he is so addled from the medication that he doesn’t realize it.

“I get it,” she says finally, lifting her gaze from his arm to his eyes. “I really do, but I think you’re going to do just fine. You’ve wanted this for a long time, and you have a very, _very_ good reason to keep your head and do it perfectly. You’re _not_ a fuck up, either. I have faith in you, Rickon, and I know I’m not the only one.” she says, and it’s that damned impulse again, to reach out, to touch him, because she lifts her free hand, pressing her palm to his cheek. “You’re going to kick ass and take names.”

“Thanks,” he says after a few moments, looking at her, a bemused smile on his face, the faintest of creases between his brow. His hand is halfway up towards hers, and she bites her lip, letting her fingers slide from his cheek.

“Anyways,” she says, clearing her throat and standing, feeling the absence of him when she slides her hand free from him. “Better get back to bed. You have a very bad man you need to beat up tomorrow. You’ll need your strength,” she grins, and he laughs as he stands with her, and it’s rusty and deep in his half-awake state.

“Don’t forget, I’ll be giving him a few extra punches for you, sweetheart,” he says, drawing out the term of endearment, making it sound like something a gangster would say, or maybe Sean Connery. It makes her laugh, makes her grin like an idiot the entire drive home, to know he remembered that conversation, to think that he might keep his word and beat up a mean boy for her.  _Ah,_  she thinks, rolling her eyes at herself as she lingers at a stoplight,  _so this is what a crush feels like._ It has been so long, she forgot.

 

Sansa wakes up early Saturday morning, tiptoeing around the house until she realizes Sandor is already up and has already left, and then she relaxes and putters around as usual. She has errands to run, would run around town even if she didn’t in order to keep her mind off of the evening’s planned events. Shireen has told her how cruel and selfish her cousin can be, and to throw herself in his path is more than a little nerve wracking. It’s been awhile since she’s been a part of the bar scene, as well, having dated Harry on and off for a couple of years, and she wonders if she’s rusty, if she’ll be able to turn it on like she used to, side by side with Jeyne sipping $15 cocktails on weekend trips up to L.A. She’s brushing her teeth, staring at her new hair, and a sudden memory hits her: emboldened with a few drinks, she took her straw and plunked it into a cute guy’s drink, sipped from it as she maintained eye contact before removing the straw and walking away. He danced with her all night. She grins to herself in the mirror before rinsing out the toothpaste.  _I’ve still got it. I’m sure I do._

She dresses and makes coffee, eats a yogurt by herself since even the noises in the kitchen and the smell of coffee can’t seem to rouse her brother to join her, but it’s early for him; he’s slept in every morning since he got out of prison, and she can’t blame him, though she thinks he needs to get a job soon.  _Speak for yourself,_  she thinks, wincing at how conveniently she forgot to include herself in that assessment. Sansa sighs. It’s all well and good, their little scheme to ferret out the truth of their parents’ and Robb’s deaths, but it’s widening the gap between tragedy and regaining normalcy, and she wonders if the longer they put it off, the harder it will be, and they will forever be stuck here in this painful, angry, tear-stained limbo.

The boxes of her stuff from Point Loma have already arrived and been unpacked, but even a good twenty minute stare into her closet tells her she does not own anything suitable for seduction; she’s not a miniskirt person, is a skinny jeans and blouse kind of woman, a to-the-knee cocktail dress kind of woman. Joff, she decides, is a miniskirt guy, judging by the girls in his photos, beaming vapidly with his arm over their shoulders, his fingers dangling familiarly close to their breasts.  _Yep. Definitely a miniskirt guy,_  she sighs as she closes the closet door, and she grabs up her purse and keys and heads out to the mall, adding it to the list of other stops she wants to make.

It’s close to noon by the time she comes home, a few Dillard’s bags slung on her arm, and Rickon is a rumple of tangled hair and grogginess on the sofa, blearily watching a courtroom reality show, the judge pontificating and banging his gavel with exaggerated dramatics.

“I’d think you of all people would avoid those kinds of shows,” she says dryly, dropping her purse on the living room sofa as she walks past the TV room and down the hall.

“It feels kind of good in a sick way, seeing other people get the book thrown at them,” he says, voice froggy with sleep, “And I can’t find the remote.” and Sansa laughs.

She tosses her purchases on the bed and sits up against the pillows and headboard, grabbing her laptop off the nightstand to check her email, and when she sees Bran’s address in her inbox, her heart nearly stops beating. It has been over a month since she’s heard from him, last words from him being that he’d try to get a flight out there. She knows it’s hard for him to travel in his condition, but she’s relieved to get word from him finally.

 

Branded25@gmail

Subject: Sorry so late

 

Hey San,

Like the subject says, I wanted to apologize for taking so long to get back to you about mom, dad and Robb. It’s been difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that they’re gone, and I needed time to let it sink in, to really appreciate what happened, to really comprehend that they’re no longer here with us.

I’ve been talking with Arya in emails a lot lately, and she told me how you shipped some of their ashes to her and Gendry, and that idea, that sort of ceremonial freedom really struck something inside me, and after giving it a lot of thought (I even meditated on it, twice), I have decided I’d like to do something similar here in France. Mom and dad never even had a honeymoon, and Robb’s never been out of the country. I think it would be a beautiful way to honor them, to set them free in the world, free of pain, of responsibility, of the fetters of the human condition.

I know you’re likely to be upset about this decision, but they are my family, too, and I really think doing this will put my heart at ease, to do this for them, with them. Jojen agrees; I explained my motivation and he’s going to help me get around the country so I can give them a proper tour of France. My address is still the same, so if you could ship the ashes out as soon as possible, that would be appreciated.

I love you Sansa. Give my best to Rickon.

Love,

Bran

 

Sansa stares at his email in disbelief and suffocating anger, at his lofty words and the admission that he and Arya have been talking about her behind her back, that they’ve conspired together to avoid the responsibility of  _all_ of it. She has moved out here to pick up the pieces and put them together again, to solve the riddle, has dealt with legal documents and wills and the reception of her parents’ ashes after seeing their cold bodies in the morgue, she has watched her eldest brother die, and she has done it all alone while one brother flips his soft-skinned fingers through the pages of books and her sister fucks her boyfriend in a tent somewhere in the boonies.

“You little shits,” she whispers, swiping angrily at the tears that track down her cheeks. “I have done  _everything_  here,” she says to the glowing computer screen, slapping it shut and shoving it halfway across her bed. She stands and paces in her room, fingers raking through her hair, hair she’s dyed so she can slip unawares into a nest of snakes, a den of lions to try and figure out who killed their family, and her brother wants to honor their release from the human condition by scattering their ashes in the Loire Valley? She is so mad she could spit, but she would never, so she screams a string of obscenities, hands clenched into fists at her side, and she nearly doubles over from the exhalation, the rush of air that leaves her in the shape of words like  _fucking assholes_ and  _I have given everything for this_  and  _they can’t even fucking come support_ me _in all this?_

“Sansa?” she hears Rickon and she wheels around, her face contorted in hurt and grief and fury to see him standing in the hall, a shocked and downright terrified look on his face. He takes a step back when she rounds on him. “Jesus Christ, San, what the fuck is the matter with you?”

“Brandon,” she grates, pointing to the laptop, and in a high pitched voice she summarizes the email, the angry tears and sobs interrupting her words so that she has to start over, twice, and the anger builds up to such staggering heights she has half a mind to grab the mug in his hand and fling it down the hallway.  _You’ll break us out of every dish in this house, Sansa Stark,_  she tries to tell herself, but it doesn’t sound so bad, even when she tries to scold herself.

Rickon is in a storm of his own when he finally opens her laptop to read the email, to make sense of what she’s half shouting, half crying, she is nearly that incoherent.

“That _asshole_ ,” he says, rubbing his hand over his mouth and chin, shocked over what he reads. “That selfish dick,” he says, slapping her computer shut just as she did. “I could hit somebody, I’m so fucking pissed off right now.” He hunches over as he sits on the edge of her bed, his head in his hands as he mutters to himself.

Sansa bites her lip, still angry but now apprehensive. There is no love lost between her younger brothers; Bran’s stellar grades and intellectual ambitions were a highlight and source of pride in their home, and troubled Rickon slipped to the wayside. This news will not go over well, and she nearly regrets telling him, but then she remembers  _fetters of the human condition_  and she decides she doesn’t care anymore.  _If this family wants to splinter, then so be it. I’m tired of playing mommy with everyone._  For good measure, Sansa kicks her wicker hamper, and when she hears the fibers crack from the strike, it sounds an awful lot like how her heart feels.

“If everyone else is spreading their ashes then I want to, too,” Rickon says later as they sit on the roof just outside his bedroom, drinking coffee together as he smokes, as she leans over to pick dead leaves out of the gutter. It’s a lovely autumn afternoon with a sky the color of a robin’s egg, breezes that set the red and orange and yellow leaves in the trees to flutter and whisper to one another, but Sansa prays for rain, for sleet, for cold snaps and freezes to match the winter in her thoughts. 

“Where would we do it? I mean, don’t you think a part of them should stay here, in the home where they made a life together?” She feels like she’s the only one who feels that hearts are where the home is, not so much the other way around. Her brother shrugs.

“They’ll always be here, so long as we are, and if we ever leave, then they’ll be inside us.”

“I don’t want to let go,” Sansa whispers, drawing up her knees and resting her chin on them as she hugs her legs to her chest. There it is; the truth, the thorn of honesty that has been bothering her since she got the phone call and everything fell apart. Arya and Bran, younger than she is, are more than ready to let go and set them free than Sansa is, and she’ll be thirty next spring. But she is scared to say goodbye to her family a _second_ time; Bran and Arya haven’t even a clue how the first goodbye feels, how it can tear away at you, so she comforts herself with the strength that comes from being the sole member of the vanguard. Rickon exhales a plume of smoke, disrupting her thoughts, and he scoots over to put an arm around her.

“You’re not letting go, Sansa. It’s not like it’s goodbye,” he says, divining out of her the secret sorrow to which she so vehemently clings. “They’re everywhere, I guess. You know? They’re in this house, they’re inside us. They’re in all the stuff they taught us, or tried to, in my case,” he says with a sad chuckle. “If they’re going to honor them by scattering their ashes, then I want to do it too. But we’ll do it here in Nashville, where they lived.”

“Where, then?”

“I don’t know but will figure it out. We’ll figure it out together,” he says, and she lets out a shaky sigh, resting her head on his shoulder as he finishes his cigarette, and she is grateful that at least one of her siblings is here, that at least one member of her family wants to be together.

 

 

 

Chapter title taken from Give Up On Ghosts - Computer Vs. Banjo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GET READY FOR ACTION in chapter 8.


	8. Army of Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114966570728/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-8-army-of)

It’s a young crowd tonight, and Sandor feels his age even more so than he does at the house. The bar is long and skinny, lower than street level, and perhaps that’s why he’s feeling the mild, sour feeling of claustrophobia here, though surely the press of bodies all around can’t help. He is not used to being with people, even after prison, finds it overwhelming even at Rickon and Sansa’s little house when it’s just the four of them with Shireen hanging around, as it so often is these days. There’s a window here, though, through which he can see calves and shins and ankles as people come and go, up and down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk, and when he begins to feel a surge of anxiety, the pressure of so many people so close to him, he looks out the window, takes a breath, steadies himself, and remembers why the fuck he’s here in the first place.

Sandor’s blood is pounding in his ears, though it doesn’t drown out the noise of the bar so much as just add to it, but he has only himself to blame; they all suggested he simply wait outside, pretend to wait for a cab or a friend, anything, but he found that scenario impossible. No, ever since she cried in front of him, ever since she cried  _into_ him _,_  he has found it harder and harder to keep away from her, either physically or mentally. He seems to unconsciously head into the rooms of the house where she is; he comes home from work and bumps into her on his way to take a shower, shirtless with his belt undone, and she stares at him, and  _those_  moments are a fucking mess; he’ll get up for a beer and find her sitting on the kitchen counter, ankles crossed as she forlornly dunks a tea bag into a mug of hot water that she stares into, so lost in her thoughts that he can back up and disappear without her noticing; the worst, when she cries herself to sleep at night, just two steps away from his own room, and he will get up, will stand outside her door, listening and not knowing what to do, not even knowing what he  _wants_  to do.

Even now, he cannot seem to stay out of this crowded, loud room, simply because she is here, and because the idea of her throwing herself at this guy all alone in some bar makes him grit his teeth, and he tells himself it is because he knows the kind of pain she and her brother are going through. He tells himself it is because her grief and anger have the potential to leave her vulnerable, just as Rickon’s have the potential to drive him over the edge, with his fists in Joff’s face. She could play it recklessly and get herself assaulted; Rickon could play it recklessly and get himself arrested for murder. Sandor knows all too well the vulnerability borne of rage, and so that is the tale he tells himself, knowing he is doing what he hates most, knowing that he is lying.

He is on a barstool on the opposite end of the bar where Sansa sits and he cannot see her, not unless he stands, but he is more concerned with where this Joff Lannister is. They have been here 20 minutes, knowing from Facebook on Shireen’s phone that they’ve left the previous joint and intend to come here at least before the night ends, but seeing as it’s only 12:30, that could take a long, long time of just sitting here on this vinyl stool with a trench coat over his arm and a pair of ladies’ flip flops stowed away in the pocket. Sandor sighs; it’s hot and close and muggy in this bar, though he can feel the gust of the A/C on the back of his neck, and finally he just bunches the trench coat up, mindful of the shoes, and heaps it on the bar. The people crowding around him may not like the space it takes up, but none of them have the courage to say anything, not when all they see are scars, anger and thinly veiled agitation, agitation that swells when he sees Lannister, surrounded by a gaggle of meticulously groomed fine boned men, descend the stairs. Sandor stands, fists clenched, and he waits.

 

Sansa is too scared to sit down here at the bar, though her feet ache in the stilettos she’s wearing. She is wearing a skirt far shorter than any she’s worn before and a skimpy thong to boot, and the thought of feeling the sticky, cheap vinyl on her bare butt is too disgusting to fathom. So instead she leans against the bar, shifting her weight from foot to foot, wondering how she used to dance all night in these skyscraper heels.

“Hey there, beautiful,” says a nondescript man after sidling up to her, squeezing through to reach her. He smiles, and he’s cute enough when Sansa lifts her eyes to his, sandy brown hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, but she’s starting to realize this bland, clean cut type is not really hers anymore, and she’s here on a mission besides, so she smiles tightly and says nothing. When he offers to buy her a drink she shakes her head.

“I’m waiting here for someone,” she says, glancing over her shoulder towards the door for emphasis. “He’ll be here any minute,” she says, and the man’s open, affable face falls somewhat at her words.

“Suit yourself,” he says with a shrug, turning away. “Have a nice night.” And Sansa has to wonder what kind of night is in store for them all.

She drums her freshly painted nails on the bar top and sips a club soda, trying not to look out of place, trying not to look desperate, trying to look laid back and assured and bold, and it’s a difficult costume to fit into because she has not felt like any of those things in a while. But she wears the makeup and clothes of a woman who would; to make her eyes pop she has swept dark shadow on eyelids that are already lined with kohl, wears pale pink lip gloss and mascara so thick it looks like fake lashes. Then there’s the leather skirt and the skimpy top with the satiny spaghetti straps that keep threatening to slip off her shoulders; she thanks God for strapless bras and body tape.

When Sandor stands abruptly a few seats down the bar, rising up from nowhere, she smiles. It made her happy when he insisted on waiting in here with her, and the reminder of his presence is a comforting one, until she sees where he is looking. It is not at her, but behind her towards the bar entrance and she knows now that Joff has arrived. Her heart is in her stomach, pounding like a war drum, and she wonders if this is, in some small way, how a soldier on the battlefield feels, or at the very least how a spy feels when its target enters the room. _Because that’s what I am tonight, isn’t it? Bait, a little bit, maybe, but a spy too._ She thinks of her parents and her brother, and her blood runs true, thick with determination and hate.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees the pale blond hair of a man pushing his way to the bar, and Sansa knows it’s time to make her move. She abandons her club soda, smiles apologetically to the people she bumps into as she steps around those seated at the bar to get next to Joff, thanking those who move out of her way, ignoring the lascivious looks aimed down her top as she passes by. Before she knows it, she’s shoulder to shoulder with Joff Lannister, son of the woman who had her family murdered, and it’s all she can do to keep from, in true Sansa fashion, grabbing the nearest cocktail glass and hurling it at his handsome face.

Because he _is_ handsome, in the way that used to make her knees knock together, in the way that only seems amusing and slightly annoying now. He and the rest of his group, and she knows it’s his group because of how similarly they’re dressed, are perfectly coiffed and overly cologned, the collars of their shirts popped, and they all look like they stepped off of one of their father’s yachts. They are tanned with white teeth, and one of them is even wearing deck shoes. She thinks of broad shoulders and a clean, woodsy smell, of a comforting embrace amidst the taste of tears, and it makes her smile, which must attract the attention of the bartender, because he leans in with a rakish grin.

“What’ll it be, sugar?” She can tell even without looking that Joff’s eyes are on her when she les in as well, arms folded on the bar, and thinking _to hell with it_ she presses her breasts together invitingly.

“Can I get a Washington apple?” She asks, wondering if they’re still as popular now as they were when she was in college, scared now that anything she does will out her as a fraud. But the bartender just nods with a widening grin, and Sansa sighs in relief, pulling a ten dollar bill from her clutch.

“Hey now, no, no, no,” drawls a voice to her right, and it is all she can do not to tremble head to toe when she looks up at Joff, who has a grin of his own to offer her, though his is far less casual flirtation, far more purposeful predator. “I can’t allow a pretty girl like you to buy her own drink. That would be sacrilege,” he says, pushing a twenty across the bar. He orders the same shot she has when the bartender sets it down. “But since I bought it you should wait ‘til I can drink mine with you,” he says, and it’s playful, teasing, light, but it does nothing to calm the beating of her heart.

“Thank you so much,” she says breathlessly, and he grins, must think she’s so windswept from him and his gallantry, his over-styled hair and the polo player on his shirt. “And of course I’ll wait for you. I never forget my manners,” she says, looking at him over her shoulder, which she raises to her chin in a simper.

“Wonderful,” he says, nodding to the man behind the bar to keep the change. Joff lifts his glass and Sansa does the same, clinking hers against his. “To good girls and their manners,” he grins, and they take their shots in unison. She told herself she could have one drink tonight, one to loosen her up, no more so she wouldn’t _slip_ up, and she’s grateful for the warmth and the courage the liquor gives her, because she needs both to keep her from shaking like a leaf.

“So, you’ve bought me a shot but haven’t even told me your name. Are you going to remain my mystery knight or are you going to introduce yourself?” She smiles, and he lifts his eyes from her breasts to look at her, that same hunter’s grin on his soft, womanly mouth. _It could be sensuous_ , she thinks, _if it weren’t so hungry looking._

“I’m Joff. Joff Lannister,” he says. “And what about you, sweetie, what can I call you?”

“Alayne,” she says, thinking of the name of a character she played once in a school play. “Alayne Stone,” she says, thinking of the name of that news anchor from Dateline.

“Pretty name for a pretty girl. Now that I know what to call you, _how_ will I call you?” He pulls out his smart phone, clearly expecting her to fork over her phone number already, as if an $8 shot is all it takes to win her heart.

This was Rickon and Sandor’s concern, that she’d be asked for her number, and Sansa complained in private to Shireen that they think she’s stupid enough to give this guy her real number. Sansa pulls out the prepaid phone she bought earlier that day in Kroger, having thought it would be good to keep a line of communication open with him, just in case tonight didn’t go as planned. Joff laughs to see such an unpopular model, but she wasn’t going to spend any more money than she had to on this operation; the outfit alone cost her over $150.

“You know, I just recently got this phone, since I moved here from- from Kansas,” she says, wincing inwardly at this most random of choices. _You are not Dorothy, and this is not Oz, Sansa,_ she thinks. “I don’t remember the number, but you give me yours and I’ll call you right now.”

“Silly girl,” he murmurs as he takes her phone from her, typing in the numbers, and he is smirking when he hands it back to her, and she wonders if he thinks he’s got her in the bag, this wide eyed bumpkin fool of a girl who can’t remember her own phone number. It was an unintentional mess-up, but Sansa relaxes into the role, now that she’s secured one and knows how to play it. Being dumb, or pretending to be, is probably the easiest way to the heart of a man like this.

“I know,” she breathes, smiling after he makes sure her number comes up on his phone. “There’s just so much overwhelming stuff when you move to a new state. I haven’t even done much sightseeing. I haven’t even seen the river yet, but I know it’s just down that way,” she says, pointing over her shoulder before dropping her hand to her hair. _Women play with their hair when they’re interested,_ she thinks, remembering some article she read a thousand years ago, and so she drags her hair from one shoulder to the other, and he watches the movement like a cat watches a mouse, or a little bird outside the window.

“I can show you the river,” he says slowly. “It’ll be dark though, so you better stick close to me,” and again with the predatory grin as he gestures towards the door. He makes eye contact with one of his friends and gives him a knowing nod before looking back to her. “After you, Alayne,” and Sansa knows he’s staring at her butt the entire time it takes to get out on the sidewalk.

 “So what made you move to town?” He asks as they head at a slow pace towards the river. Sansa glances across the street into the parking lot, is relieved to see the flash of fog lights from the back of the lot. _Good, they see it’s me._ “You can’t have been here long, either, or else I would have run into you. I’m pretty big on the scene here,” Joff says to her, and she was right, he’s a miniskirt guy. He’s got his arm slung across her shoulders, the movement nearly pushing the spaghetti strap of her blouse clean off, and his fingers dangle close to her left breast, disturbingly so.

“Well, I’m a singer, and I wanted to try and get into the music scene here.” She is, overall, a modest woman, but she knows with honest appraisal that she is a good singer, which is why she chose that for her motive, because if he dares her to sing and to prove it, she has the talent to back it up.

“Jesus, another Taylor Swift wannabe, huh?” Joff chortles. “I’ll tell you one thing, if you can sing half as good as you look tonight, I bet you’ll at least get your foot in the door,” he says, and if he thinks he is being gallant, Sansa wonders at his level of intelligence. What he lacks in smarts he more than makes up for in assumptions, though, considering how quickly he asked for her number.

“Thanks,” she enthuses, lifting a hand to twirl a lock of her hair, hoping it looks girlish, coquettish, flirty. “So what is it you do?”

“I work for my grandfather,” he says haughtily. “Lannister Realty, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. We own half the commercial properties downtown,” he says, a prideful curl to his upper lip, and he rattles on about his responsibilities and how the company will pass to him when his grandfather retires. She is surprised he even bothered to ask her about herself at all, but then she remembers, it was less about her, and more a chance to brag about being a scenester. Sansa represses a smirk, murmurs a noncommittal and then, as they reach the corner, goes  _Ooh, how pretty._

“Pretty? Where?” Joff asks, glancing around with scrutiny.

“There, with the trees. It looks so dark and cozy,” she says with a smile, thinking of how utterly stupid she sounds, but if Joff Lannister is anything, it’s a horn dog, and so his expression smoothes out into smugness, and he looks at her appraisingly.

“Not so shy, then, are we? And here I thought you just wanted to see the river,” he grins. It is disturbing to Sansa when she wonders just how many women he’s seduced, bedded and abandoned, makes her slightly queasy to think of how many women must fawn over him.

“Well, I do want to see the river, but I want to see this part, too,” she says, giving him what she hopes is a saucy smile. She eases out from under his arm, walking in front of him, backwards, his hand in hers as she tugs him lightly towards the cover of trees.

“There’s definitely parts I want to see,” he says, gaze dropping her breasts, sliding down her thighs and back up again. She suppresses a shudder and slathers on a smile, and with her heart in her throat, Sansa leads him into the shadows. Her heels sink in the mud and she must walk solely on her toes to keep them out of the earth, and it makes her feel even more unsure, even more unsteady, and when she stumbles slightly, he catches her, has her right where he wants her, and her mind draws a blank until he leans in to kiss her.

“Now, now, I’m not that kind of girl,” she says, attempting lightness, playfulness, and he chuckles darkly, presses her back against the trunk of a tree, trapping her there when he braces a hand to the tree beside her head. Joff leans in, and Sansa cannot breathe.

“You’re the one who brought me here, baby, so really, what kind of girl  _does_  that make you?”

 

Shireen and Rickon are parked across the street from the bar, almost directly in line with the entrance, in the filthy and therefore unrecognizable 4Runner, a condition that is all due to his efforts earlier, a good hour’s worth of doing donuts in the puddle-filled muddy lot next to the construction site Sandor is working at. “You’ll be the one taking it to the carwash” was all his sister said, shaking her head with an amused roll of her eyes, but Shireen called it clever, and that was enough for him.

He is a fidgeting mess, drumming his fingers on the center console, flicking his lighter over and over again. He has his legs crossed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, and he cannot stop bobbing his foot as it dangles. He is darkly excited to vent his anger out on someone, but nervous as well; he still dreams at night that he is in prison, whenever he doesn’t dream of his dead family. Rickon squeezes his hand in a fist, envisioning the first strike, the first attack, tries to squeeze out the very real chance that he’ll get caught and thrown back in jail.

“Are you okay?” Shireen finally asks him after they’ve sat for about thirty minutes, turning to face him full on. The scattered lampposts in the parking lot cast their light on the scarred left side of her face, exacerbating the textures there, and it makes him want to touch her cheek, to feel what he sees. She looks like she could be a double agent in some crime thriller drama, dressed as she is all in black with his black watchmen’s cap on her head, but then, he’s head to toe in the color as well, right down to his combat boots. Converses, he decided earlier, wouldn’t hurt as much in a good swift kick to the gut, and so he rummaged around in his stuff until he found these boots from his getting-drunk-in-parking-lot days.

“Yeah,” he says testily, distractedly, turning away from her to stare at the bar, but then he sighs, because it’s a lie and he does not want to lie to her. “Actually, no. No, I’m not,” and he tells her his fears of getting arrested again, tells her about the email from Bran, tells her how angry his sister was and how infuriated he is. She listens mostly in silence, to her credit, lets him spit it all out in an attempt to get the bitter taste out of his mouth. “You know, it’s so weird that the golden boy star student won’t come to help out and to pay his respects, but the piece of shit son, the ex-convict who used to smoke weed in the basement is here. And my parents are dead, so they can’t see that. They don’t see me, they don’t know it’s me who is here trying to help, don’t see that I’m finally trying.”

She nods as she listens, chewing her lip, and he finds it’s easy to look her in the eye as he speaks, spills out the hurts of his dark heart. There is a frown of concern on her face, and while pity would piss him off, the sympathy there that she has for him is like a salve to his wounds.

“My mom died when I was 14,” she says finally, and he looks at her sharply, twists in his seat to face her the way she’s always turning to face him; they’ve discussed both of their parents before, but she’s always more reserved in discussing it, and it makes him feel bad, like he’s monopolizing the pain and the nostalgia, so he is happy to hear her offer something of herself. “I um, you know I kind of graduated high school early,” she says, shy and proud and embarrassed of the accomplishment, all in one, and he wants to shake his head at this modesty. He barely scraped by; if he graduated at sixteen and then went on to college he’d be shouting it from the rooftops.

“Yeah, I do,” he says quietly. “You’re a badass, that’s why,” and she chuckles, lifts her downcast eyes to his, and there’s pain there now, and the sight of it hurts him, more acutely than he’d think possible, but the she looks back to her lap, and he feels the loss of the connection as brightly as the pain.

“Anyways, it was my mom’s big dream to have me go to college. I’d be the first on her side, you know, but she was so sick. I wanted her so badly to see me at least get in, so that’s why I took all the accelerated classes. That’s why- that’s why I’ve done it all, actually, for her, so she could see a Florent go to college. Florent is my mom’s maiden name,” she explains when Rickon gives her a confused look. “But um, she died two years before I managed it. So my dad got to see me graduate and get into Vandy, but my mom never did. I tried my hardest, got great grades, hoping the higher the score, the more likely she’d be able to see it from heaven, but to be honest, it just… I just wish she could have seen it, is all. So I completely understand,” she says with a sigh. “It sucks. It just sucks all around.”

“Yeah, it does,” he murmurs, and he brushes her hair back so he can better see her face, which makes her look back up to him. “I’m sorry, Shireen.” She tips her face ever so slightly against his hand, and he is able to tuck the hair behind her ear, just beneath the edge of her watchman’s cap, which makes her smile, and he feels a warmth bloom in him, to be able to bring a smile there on her pale mouth, void as it is of lipstick this time. There is a flurry of movement across the street and they turn in unison to look; the turn of her head takes her away from his touch, and he’s forced to drop his hand back to the console.

 “Shit, I think that’s her,” she says, and if he thought Shireen looked like a crazy double agent before, it’s almost laughable when she picks up his dad’s old binoculars to verify if it’s Sansa.

“God I hate that bastard,” she says, and they watch in silence as Sansa and Joff slowly make their way down to the river. “Crap, I almost forgot,” she says, dropping the binoculars in her lap to switch on the fog lights. Without giving it a thought he picks up the binoculars to watch his sister, and when his fingers brush her thigh she gasps and turns to stare at him. He grins sheepishly, shrugging.

“My bad,” he says, looking through the binoculars. “Ah, there’s Sandor,” he murmurs, watching as the man, big as an ox even from here, with a trench coat draped over his arm, heads after Sansa and Joff, though he stops short at the corner between the brightness of one street and the darkness of the other. He drops the coat there on the corner, and the bland beige of the coat blends in well with the sidewalk. “That’s my cue,” Rickon says, handing the binoculars back to Shireen, not _quite_ so bold as to place them back in her lap. “Wish me luck,” he says, looking back at her, and she shakes her head.

“You don’t need luck,” she says, “so I’ll just wish you speed and strength.”

“Oh honey, you’ve never seen me fight,” he grins, opening the car door. “I don’t need those, either.” She huffs a nervous laugh as he shuts his door, and his last sight of her is one of widened, worried eyes, her face pale in the darkness and framed by her long hair, her lower lip caught in her teeth, and it takes him long moments to shake himself free of the sight, of their conversation, of the feel of her hair between his fingers.

But he does shake himself free of it, not needing a distraction right now, and by the time he jogs down the parking lot to the intersection his mind is clear. It’s lit up by streetlights, all four corners, but the light does not penetrate the leaves and branches of the trees, there where his sister is. His adrenaline is running so high he feels lightheaded, and it scares him, the idea that it could cause him to falter, to mess up, could lead to his getting in trouble. But as he crosses the intersection, ignoring a cab driver’s string of obscenities when he walks in front of it, as he heads into the darkness beneath the tree canopy, Rickon can see Joff pin his sister against a tree, can hear him say _You’re the one who brought me here, baby, so really, what kind of girl does that make you_ and it’s enough to boil his blood, he is that overcome with anger, and the flutter of nerves, the sour spice of fear and the jangle of adrenaline all mellow out into the smooth flow of rage, like lava from a volcano. _Your people killed my parents and my brother, but you will_ never _touch my sister._

He sprints forward, target acquired, and just as Joff steps in, head bowed, ready to steal a kiss or even more, Rickon lifts his right shoulder and turns, slamming the side of his body into Joff’s, knocking him sideways away from his sister, sending him stumbling down to his knees from the impact, and Joff shouts his surprise while Sansa lets out a shrill cry of distress.

“Fuck off,” he shouts to Sansa, who is panting as if she just ran a marathon, her mouth in a little O as she stares at him, before he turns back to Joff, who has regained his footing, who turns with an angry look back to Rickon. “I said fuck _off,_ ” he says, worried she’s so paralyzed from fright that she can’t remember what to do next, but then he sees her let go of a breath, and his sister turns, swoops down to take off her shoes, and then she’s gone, and now he can focus on the part he has to play.

“What the fuck, you asshole? She was here with me,” Joff says, getting to his feet, but whatever reasoning he has is never spoken, because Rickon comes to him in two strides and punches him in the mouth so hard Joff’s teeth cut into his knuckles.

Joff staggers back, his hands flying to his face, and Rickon hopes he knocked a tooth out. “I’m not here for her,” Rickon snarls, using Joff’s distraction over his face to aim another punch to his stomach, and the blond man doubles over, wheezing. “I’m here for you, _Lannister,_ you and your whole fucking family,” and he grabs him by his spiked hair, yanking his head up so he can punch him again, and the second hit to his face knocks him onto his ass. Rickon grins, darkly amused to feel hair still stuck between his bloodied fingers, to see the blood on Joff’s white polo shirt, to watch him cradle his face with the vanity of a woman. He remembers that this bastard threw mud and spit on Shireen, and since he dedicated the first few hits to his family, he dedicates these to Shireen, and he stoops as he draws back his fist for another punch.

 

Sandor is twenty paces or so down the street from the corner where Sansa’s coat and flip flops await her, and he is cloaked, for the most part, in darkness. There he waits, heartbeat thrumming, fingers curling into his palms and then out again.  _Wait. Remember to breathe. Keep your head. Wait._

There is the light slam of a car door being shut, and Sandor presses harder against the wall; it should be Rickon, given the timing, but here, downtown, it really could be anyone, and he does not want to be seen.  _This crazy fucking plan,_  he thinks, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he secretly loves it, that he is looking forward to throwing a punch, even if it must be at his friend’s face. And there his friend goes, a tall, thin smudge of black shirt and dark pants walking through the pool of streetlight in the intersection, and he sees him pop his neck once, jerking his head to the side before breaking out into a sprint, and once more, Sandor wonders if this kid can keep his shit in check.

Right on time, there is a shout and then Sansa lets out a high pitched shriek of alarm. Sandor moves further down the street away from the lights and then he can see, amidst the shadows of trees, that Rickon is throwing his pain, knuckle by knuckle and fist by fist, into the face of his victim, over and over, without fail, until the other man falls to his ass with a moan that is muffled by flowing blood and the hands he claps over his face.

 “Fuck off,” Rickon says, and Sandor opens his eyes, knowing this cue, sees Sansa trot out from that small, isolated little world of violence, already barefoot, high heels in hand, her long hair an inky flag behind her as she bursts into the anemic glow of the streetlights. He watches her race across the street on the balls of her feet to where he left the jacket and flip flops, just a dozen feet behind him and to his left. He’s not a praying man, but still he sends one up, that none of Joff’s friends have left the bar and loiter outside, that if so, none will recognize her as the mystery woman who lured away their friend.

“You call out again, motherfucker, and I will slit your fucking  _throat,_ ” Rickon says, crouching down over his prey, and Sandor closes his eyes against the sound of a fist cracking against a cheekbone. He isn’t disgusted; he is trying to calm himself down, trying to maintain himself and not get lost the throes of the fight. He used to love this sort of thing unfolding before him, the rush of adrenaline, the smell of blood, the dull, bone-throb pain in his knuckles that somehow made every other misery fade into the background.  

Sandor counts to ten, listens to the sound of flip flops slapping the asphalt as Sansa runs across the other street to the SUV in the parking lot. He lingers a moment longer, figuring Joff deserves as many more kicks and hits as Rickon can muster, and then he barks out a “Hey, what the fuck is going on here?” from his side of the avenue. He crosses the street as he cracks his knuckles, loudly, and hopes he can hold himself back well enough without it looking completely fake; he’s got enough mass on Rickon that anything less than sending the guy to the hospital would look staged.

“Mind your own fucking business,” Rickon says, and now he’s far enough into the trees that he can see clearly. Rickon’s done well for himself; there is a generous spray of blood on Joff’s white polo, likely from his nose if Sandor’s own experience can be relied upon. Lannister is in the fetal position, whimpering and offering money, offering the keys to his car, and Sandor has to repress a grimace of second hand embarrassment and disgust. Finally Rickon grins and his foot swings back, like the pendulum of a clock, and he kicks Joff so hard in the gut that the fallen man retches, lets out a sickly sob before rolling over on his back in some weak willed attempt at escape. Joff’s holding his face in both hands like a woman, as if afraid of a threat to his beauty, but they fly away fast enough when Rickon drops all his weight onto him, a knee on his chest, a hand gripped around his throat. Wildly, fleetingly, Sandor wonders if Rickon would have killed Meryn Trant in prison, had Sandor himself not stopped him.

“You’ll get it for this,” Joff says through his blood and his tears. “I’ll get you for this.”

“There you’re wrong, asshole,” Rickon whispers, leaning over so his forehead nearly touches his foe’s. “It’s you who’s gonna get it, Lannister. You and your whole shit family.  I’ll find you again, you little fucker, and next time I’ll kill all of- what the fuck _,_ ” he says, unable to finish his sentence when Sandor grabs him by both shoulders and hurls him off of the other man. Rickon skids on the wet grass a foot or so before getting to his feet and advancing.

“Leave him alone,” Sandor snarls, and it feels strange to announce himself as being on the side of justice for this little dick, for being the knight in shining armor for some sniveling little rich bitch, but Rickon puts up a good fight, and soon Sandor is into it, has immersed himself in the role. They circle each other, aiming fists at each other, mostly missing, though Rickon catches him once, and he clocks the youngest Stark hard enough to nearly throw him off his feet. Rickon comes back with wild eyes, even teeth bared.

“Mind your own goddamned business, you fuck, this is  _my_  fight,” and for a minute, Sandor wonders if his rage and his pain have made him forget, just as he thought, and he wants to remind Ric that this is their stage, that they’re in the opening scene in a play of their own design. But when Rickon approaches, draws back to punch him, it is so comically slow for him, so poorly executed that Sandor is reassured, and does his best to follow suit when he sends Rickon back to the ground with a second punch to the face.

“Get the fuck out of here, asshole,” Sandor says, and Rickon rolls onto his hands and knees, playing perfectly the role of spineless bully as he scrambles to his feet and runs off, spitting blood into the halo of lamplight in the center of the intersection. Sandor watches him flee for half a moment, sees the 4Runner’s headlights switch on as the engine turns, and then he looks back to the little shit stain in the mud.

“Jesus, mate, you okay?” He says after a beat, turning to Joff Lannister, who is still on his back like an overturned turtle in designer jeans.

“Of course I am,” he says, struggling to sit up, taking Sandor’s offered hand. “There were three others you know, before they chased off that girl and started attacking me.”

 _Oh ho,_ Sandor thinks.  _So this is the feeble character we’re working with, here,_  and it’s difficult, even for him, to keep from grinning, from shoving him back in the mud as he offers the kid an escort to either the bar or his car, saying he doesn’t mind, he’s done this line of work before, how in his experience everybody, sooner or later, finds they need a bodyguard.

 

Shireen has been staring at the trees for the past few minutes, chewing on a fingernail, stuck somewhere between excited and terrified, worried for Sansa and bloodthirsty like Rickon, somewhere between feeling like a vigilante and a criminal.  _Some think those last two are the same,_  she reminds herself, and so she is left to ponder what  _she_  thinks, to wonder if it even matters in the end.

Sansa is the one who breaks her from her thoughts; the tall woman bursts out of the shadows, high heels already off and in a few long strides crosses the street to where Sandor dropped the shoes and jacket. She manages to swoop down and pick up the trench coat without embarrassing herself in that skirt, grace under pressure as she is, and she pulls out the flip flops, throws them to the sidewalk and steps into them before tying the coat around her waist and running across Church Street towards Shireen.  A passing car honks, and Shireen can hear the cat calls coming from inside, and she rolls her eyes. _Men._

“Oh my God, that was intense,” Sansa breathes after getting into the backseat on the passenger side. Shireen turns in the driver’s seat to look at her; the other woman’s eyes are bright and Shireen can see in the half-light how flushed she is, that she’s breathing heavily, from the short run or the incident under the trees or both.  “Oh my God, I don’t know whether to start laughing or to throw up,” she says, holding her hands out over the console. “Look at me, I’m shaking,” and it’s true, Shireen sees her long fingers trembling, even in the darkness of the car.

“Talk about an adrenaline rush, huh,” Shireen says, grasping her hands with a squeeze in an attempt to calm her friend. “Are you okay? Did he like, did he touch you?” She asks, because that’s what she’s been worried about, as well as she knows her cousin. She warned Sansa, warned them all, but still she feels partly responsible,  _would_  feel partly responsible, if things had escalated to the point of physical violation.

“No, no, I mean, he wanted to. Man, he really wanted to, and if Rickon hadn’t come when he did,” Sansa says, trailing off a moment before taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady her breathing. “Well. Let’s just say his timing was perfect. Look! There he is,” she says, still slightly breathless as she leans forward, pointing.

They watch him spit in the street as he jogs, and both women gasp when a car pulls through the intersection, narrowly missing him, but he pays them no mind, hell bent as he is on reaching the car, and when he does they can see the dark wetness of blood on his face. He spits again before opening the door, and now Shireen understands that he must have gotten hit in the face, that there is blood is his mouth.

“Are you okay?” Sansa asks, beating her to the question when Rickon hauls himself into the car and shuts the door. He is panting, as wild eyed as his sister was when she first got in the backseat, but there is something more unhinged in him, as if something has been shaken free and set loose.

“I’m fine, just, let’s get out of here, okay?”

She starts the car, unable to keep from glancing at him every few seconds as she waits for a break in the Saturday night traffic to pull out of the parking lot and out onto 2nd avenue.  He keeps using the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe at his nose, revealing how pale and lithe he is, but then again prison isn’t known for tanning beds and rich French cuisine, and she is torn between glancing at his torso and staring at the blood on his face. When she spares another glance his way he’s watching her already, the grin on his mouth only partially hidden by the stretch of t-shirt he’s got pressed to his nose.

“I’m all right, okay? I swear. Sansa, are you okay?” He asks while twisting over his left shoulder to see his sister, and in the blossom of light from a passing car, Shireen can see the bruise under his eye already beginning to form. “It was starting to sound pretty pervy over there by the time I got there. I hope you were prepared to kick him in the nuts.”

“I didn’t have to. I knew you’d be there, bub,” his sister says, and in the rearview she can see that while Sansa is buckled in and gazing out the window, she has her arm outstretched, and her hand rests on her little brother’s shoulder, suggesting to Shireen that things were much more serious than she initially let on, and for the rest of the ride they are all silent, and she thinks only of how satisfying it would have been to be the one beating up her shithead cousin, how good it would feel to be Rickon right now, rubbing his sore, bloody knuckles with a dark little smile on his face.

 


	9. As The Rush Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114971502118/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-9-as-the-rush-comes)

They spent a silent car ride from downtown to the house and now the three of them are seated in silence in the dining room, Rickon with his head tipped against the back of his chair as he holds a bag of frozen peas to his face, and they are waiting for Sandor to come home. Sansa traces the whorls and lines in the wooden table with a fingertip, her head in her other hand, while Shireen has her chin resting on her folded forearms atop the table, her hair a sweep of brown silk over her shoulders. In her mind’s eye, Sansa sees Joff standing in front of her, blond hair gray beneath the tree’s shadow, before a black clad blur takes over the image, until the  _thwack_  of a fist and Joff’s startled, pained cry replaces the vulgar words he was so close to uttering.

“You should have seen yourself, Rickon,” she murmurs, half smiling despite the topic of conversation, despite the feeling that she has most likely escaped sexual violation. She smiles not only because of how viciously he fought but because of the reasons. For the first time it feels like her baby brother fought  _for_  his family as opposed to against it, which he has done nearly his entire life.

“Hnnngh,” he says from beneath the bag of frozen produce, and there is a rustle of half melted peas as he lifts his head, tosses the bag onto the table, and gingerly touches his nose. “I’m probably lucky it’s not broken,” he says, and wordlessly Shireen lifts her head, unfolds her arms and extends to him a wad of tissue. It makes Sansa grin, and she ducks her head to hide it; such a simple gesture of caring, of waiting to tend to him, but so full of sweetness.  _It’s nice to see sweetness after so much bitter,_  she thinks, watching as Rickon gives Shireen a slow, blinking smile before he takes the tissue and dabs at his nose, drawing it back to see if there’s still fresh blood.

“Did Joff get a hit in?” Shireen asks, and Rickon laughs. It makes him look like a wild animal, with his black eye and dried blood under his nose, the bright red cut in the center of his lower lip, the cut he touches every so often with the edge of his tongue, testing it, worrying it.

“I told you I didn’t need speed or strength, honey. No, these are gifts from Sandor,” he says, chuckling at the thought of someone like Joff Lannister getting a punch in edgewise.

“Sandor  _hit_  you?” Sansa asks, finding it a hard image to conjure, as close as he and Rickon are becoming, almost brotherly when they make fun of each other, when they argue amiably over what to watch on television, and most of all when they sit in silent, sullen camaraderie, heads inclined forward, lost in thoughts and memories they seem to share.

“Had to make it look believable, you know? Thank God he had his wits about him, though, or else I think he  _would_  have broken my nose. All this damage from just two hits,” he says, waving a finger in a circle towards his face. “That guy knows how to throw a punch.”

“So did he cry?” Shireen asks with a wicked little grin. “Did you make Joff cry, honey?” Rickon grins back at her, snorting out a chuckle that makes him wince.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, he cried. I told you I’d hit him extra for you, and I’m pretty sure it was  _those_  that made him cry like a little bitch.”

“Oh _, goody,_ ” Shireen says, and they all laugh. The tension eases away then, and they sit there, going over everything that happened, Rickon demonstrating how he knocked Joff to the ground and then pounced on him. To Sansa it sounds violent, cruel, almost sadistic, but at the same time she loves every word of it. She tries to remind herself that if anyone had her family killed it’s not likely to be Joff, but his mother, his grandfather maybe, but then this is a man who tormented Shireen, who made such obscene advances on her downtown, and so it does little to wipe the grin off her face as they relive the evening.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Shireen says finally, sitting back in the chair. Rickon has brought them all beers and she turns the bottle in her hands as she stares at it before looking up to them both, her dark blue eyes wide with wonder. Rickon has his cold beer pressed lightly to his cheekbone beneath his bruised eye, but despite his injuries he looks cheerful enough.

“Ye of little faith,” he murmurs, and Shireen rolls her eyes, shaking her head.

“You know what I mean, there were a lot of variables, but we did it. What I’m  _trying_  to say, is I’m glad I put my chips in, is all.”

“We still have to see if Sandor gets in on Joff’s good side,” Sansa points out, and as if on cue, they hear a key in the front door. Comically, she and Shireen both gasp in unison as they all look at each other, frozen a moment before Rickon leaps up from his chair. They follow his suit and are all in a jostle, trying to exit the dining room to meet Sandor at the door.

Their little welcome party must startle him because he stands in the threshold, momentarily dumbstruck, and Sansa cannot help but notice how completely he fills it, broad shoulders nearly grazing either side of the doorway, head only a few inches below the top of the frame. She takes a step forward without realizing it, not until his eyes, as gray as a rain cloud, settle on her, pinning her in place.  _He is angry,_  she thinks, and suddenly she realizes he is mad at her, specifically.

“How did it go?” Rickon asks, breaking the spell, and Sandor lifts his eyes off of her, looking to her brother, and Sansa lets go of a breath she did not know she was holding. “Did you get it? Did you get him to hire you?”

“Aye, I did, though I had to steer him in that direction a couple of times,” Sandor says, closing and locking the door behind him. He is utterly, completely closed off to them, and it irritates Sansa; this part is the crucial one, this is the design all the other parts create when put together, and she feels they deserve the details, so she tells him.

“How about some more information, Sandor? We’ve been waiting here on pins and needles for you to come back, tell us everything. Tell us what he said, what’s going to happen, how—”

“How about  _you_  tell  _me_  why you gave that little shit your fucking phone number?” He says, rounding on her, stepping to her just as she stepped to him, but for altogether different reasons.

“What?” She says, mystified, glancing for help to Shireen and Rickon, who have backed away from this exchange, who stand side by side with looks of surprise on their faces. Shireen shrugs, eyes wide, and Rickon just shakes his head, watches Sandor warily with his eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, I didn’t give him _my_ number,” she says, but he shakes his head, his jaw muscles working.

“Bullshit, Sansa, I  _saw_  you. I saw you pull a phone out, and now that bastard will find out your real name, can find you if he tries hard enough. What were you  _thinking_?” He asks, grasping her upper arm, and Rickon takes a step towards them with a sharp  _Hey now, man_ , but Sansa just scowls at him, stepping towards him unafraid with her chin stuck out, because now she is angry too; that emotion is closer to the surface these days than it’s ever been in her life, and she does not have to call loudly to summon it.

“It was a burner phone,  _Sandor,_ ” she spits out, and she feels a dark pleasure to see the confusion flicker in his thundercloud eyes. “Yeah, that’s right, I went out earlier today, and aside from this stupid  _slutty_  outfit, I got myself a prepaid phone. But apparently you think I’m too  _fucking stupid_  for forethought, eh?” She wrenches her arm from his grasp, goes so far as to shove him in the chest, her hands, long as they are due to her height, looking small and frail against the breadth of him, before spinning on her bare heel and storming into her bedroom, feeling an overwhelming sense of satisfaction at how loudly she slams the door behind her.

 

Sansa’s door slams and moments later the front door slams as well, and she and Rickon are left standing in the combined wakes of Sansa and Sandor’s tempers. It’s palpable, the anger and misunderstanding, the fumbling of caring, the failure of kindness, and finally Shireen lets out a long, low whistle, shaking her head.

“Well  _that_  was awkward,” she says, and Rickon snorts.

“Understatement,” he says, beer bottle still pressed against his face. He draws it back and looks at it as if remembering it’s there at all, and he drinks from it. She looks up at him, sees for a moment the troubled boy inside the troubled man; she wonders how many times he came home from school looking like he does, thinking he must have at least a handful of times, judging by how comfortably he wears his new injuries.

“Does it hurt still? Your eye, I mean. And your nose. And your mouth,” she says, and he looks down at her, smiling.

“Yeah, they do. But they won’t tomorrow, not so much. Well, the eye will. And the nose, a little. Maybe the mouth, too,” and she bites her lip through her smile.

“You almost look as bad as I do,” she teases, and Rickon groans, letting his head sag back as he stares at the ceiling, shaking his head.

“This shit again,” he says, setting his beer down on the sofa table behind the living room couch. She gasps when he steps into her, taking her face in his hands. They’re cool from the bottle, and large enough that his fingertips are lost in her hairline. He studies her, eyes roaming her face, and his thumbs sweep along her cheekbones with a lightness of which she did not think him capable. “It’s nothing, Shireen. It feels different from the other cheek, it may look different too. But it’s  _nothing,_ okay? You are way more of a person than just some scars, okay? You’re smart as a whip. You’re gorgeous. And you’re _nice_. You listen to all my crap and you seem to care, and you’re a fucking bad ass. I can see all that, because I’m _looking._ So are you ever going to believe me?”

A wisp of a sigh escapes her, and that is the only answer she can give him, she is that breathless, held as she is like some treasure between his hands. Her heart is a thudding, hammering thing, a trapped hummingbird trying to beat its way out of her body, and she can do nothing but lay a hand on his chest and gaze back at him, and  _oh_  but he’s still handsome, even with the blood and the bruises, and she realizes she wants to kiss him, wants him to kiss her. He seems to sense it, for his eyes stop moving, stop studying, and they start  _looking,_ gazing back into hers so intensely it makes her want to cry _._

“Oh,” she whispers when his mouth curves, achingly slow, into an understanding grin, and his head starts to tip towards hers before they hear a loud  _Goddammit_  from outside and the metallic clanging of something bouncing down the stone stairs of the front porch. They both jump and his hands leave her face, they step away from each other and stare at the front door.

“Goddammit,” Rickon murmurs the echo, and Shireen agrees with the sentiment. She sighs.

“I’ll go,” she says, glancing to him, feeling the blush hot on her cheeks.

“You? Don’t you think I should?”

“You go to your sister, Rickon, and I’ll see to Sandor. I think I know what’s bugging him, and I don’t think he’ll be too eager to share it with you, you being Sansa’s brother and all.” Awareness and understanding clear up his expression and he nods.

“Gotcha,” he says, giving her a lingering look before nodding again, turning to walk down the hall to his sister’s room where she rages in the company of her parents’ ghosts. She hears him knock, call out “San?” in a soft voice, and then the click of the door as he opens it, the second click as he closes it.  _He’s a good brother,_  she thinks with a smile, shaking her head.

Shireen heaves a sigh and gives herself a mental shake before opening the front door and stepping outside. The scene laid out before her has lost all sense of anger, and what remains is defeat and guilt and sadness, but it’s hard to go anywhere in this house without feeling those things; they are almost as tangible as real people, as great ugly beasts you have to say  _P_ _ardon_  to in order to walk around them and cross the room.

Sandor sits on the top step with his head bowed, is surrounded by dozens of cigarette butts that are scattered all over the porch and stairs, a few of them in the grass and on the walkway where Rickon’s coffee can ashtray lies, forlorn and defeated on its side. She hums in understanding and takes a seat next to him, bracing her folded forearms against her knees as she gazes sidelong at him.

“That kid needs to quit smoking,” he grumbles, as if it is Rickon’s fault he has made this mess, and she wants to laugh but chooses not to. She nods instead.

“Yeah, he probably does,” she agrees. “So, what’s up, Sandor?” She chafes her arms to get her blood pumping; it’s turned crisp at night, and it’s nearly 3am now, cold and lonely with trees so still it’s as if they are sleeping, and a deserted street, a silent asphalt river frozen in place.

“I didn’t mean to upset her,” he says, his Scottish burr thicker in the midst of his sullenness, and oh, how he’s sullen. “I was only trying to- I mean, I don’t want her to get hurt,” he sums up. He scrubs his face with his hands as if he could rub away the altercation, maybe rub away the scars as well. “I didn’t like it, watching her with him. And now that I’ve spent a good hour and a half of my life listening to that disgusting asshole talk and complain and accuse and seethe, I hate it even more.”

“Because you like her,” Shireen offers, eyeing him shrewdly, and he nods before he catches himself. He starts, turns his head sharply to regard her, but the fight leaves him and he sighs heavily, nods again.

“Aye,” he says quietly. “That I do.” They sit in silence for several minutes, Shireen gazing down the street, watching a cat stalk across the yellow pool of streetlight on a corner. In the distance a dog barks, but it does nothing to disturb its feline confidence as it makes its way home after a night of carousing.

“Well who can blame you?” She says finally. “She’s beautiful and smart, charming and sweet.”

“And I deserve none of it,” he mutters, and the self-hatred in his voice simultaneously irritates her and stirs her sympathy.

“Let her be the judge of that, Sandor. Affection, love, friendship, compassion, those are things to be given. If she wants to give them to you, any of them, all of them, whatever, then let her. You don’t have to return them, although, well, too late, right?” She grins, and he snorts, chuckles, shakes his head at her jest. “Anyways, you don’t necessarily have to give them back, but you do need to accept their presence, and accept that she’s her own person.”

“I  _do_  accept that! God, you think I don’t see that? She’s—” He retorts, anger quick to bubble back up, but Shireen holds up a hand, cutting him off.

“Sandor, if she decided to give Joff her number, that’s her call to make. You wanna be the big bad protector guy, that’s fine. But she doesn’t have to like, run things by you before she does them.”

“I just don’t think she realizes how evil people can be,” he says from somewhere far away, and Shireen wonders, for just a moment, what he’s seen, what he’s experienced.

“Someone had her parents and brother killed,” Shireen says, standing up. “I think she knows exactly how evil people can be, and I think she’s determined to bring them to their knees, is willing to do more than just wring her hands on the sidelines.” She descends the rest of the stairs and bends to retrieve Rickon’s coffee can ashtray. He immediately stands with her, and together in silence they pick up the scatter of cigarette butts, the air full, Shireen hopes, of possibility for Sandor,  _and hell,_ she thinks,  _maybe a little possibility for me, too._

 

Rickon is staring up at the ceiling, sprawled out as he is on his sister’s bed, and as he listens to her rant and rave about how men are pigs, he is trying to remember the last time he fell asleep in this room between his parents, how old he was, if they moved him to his own bed or let him sleep the whole night through. It fills him with a dull, doleful pain, and he would rather listen to his sister denounce every last man on earth than sink in the memory of his mother’s breath on the nape of his neck, his scrawny little leg flung over his father’s stomach, and so he pulls out of it, struggles to the surface of grief and gasps for air. He rubs his eyes and wonders if he’s wired or exhausted, eventually deciding on both.

“Sansa, he was just worried about you,” he tries, sighing, and she stops her pacing to slap the side of his boot.

“Get your feet off my bed. God, you all really  _are_ pigs,” she seethes, finally ceasing her pacing when she flings herself into the armchair that sits in the corner where their dad’s desk used to be.  _I need to get Bran and Robb’s beds out of my room,_  he thinks as he drags himself into a sitting position, scooting to the end of the bed so his boots don’t dirty her precious bedspread.  _I need to take it back and make it all mine._ He wonders why Sansa didn’t offer  _him_  the desk, but then it’s a narrow stairway up to the attic, and so in a monumental move, Rickon decides to use logic instead of hurt feelings to find an explanation.

“Look, we know from Shireen that Joff is a total dickhead, and you yourself were just explaining how absolutely creeped out he made you feel. So, yeah, he was sort of rough about it, but I think it ultimately came from uh, you know, a caring place,” and now he sounds like Elder Brother, his therapist in prison.

“He obviously thinks I’m an idiot,” she says, and he looks at his sister in her heavy nightclub makeup, eyes ringed with black and gray, with her anger flared out all around her, and thinks she looks almost savage, like the girls in high school who wore black and would get into fights in the gym. “I mean why the hell would I give that guy my real number?”

“Well, shit, San, I don’t know. I know you’re smart, smarter than I am, but Sandor said he saw you pull out your phone. I’m not a fuckin’ detective, you know? If I saw you pull a phone out I’d assume it was your real phone, and I’d probably be just as freaked out.”

“ _Why_? Because you just assume I’m just a stupid girl?” She snaps, and there’s a flicker of temper in Rickon that rises up to meet hers, and he snaps right back, gesturing with a hand in the air, leaning towards her.

“No, goddammit, it’s because I love you, you idiot. You’re my sister, okay? If I saw you hand over part of yourself to that guy, like a phone number or whatever, yeah, I’d be pissed. I’d be freaked out. Jesus, Sansa. Why the fuck do you think I lunged so fast at that guy? I  _heard_  the shit he was saying, all ‘what kind of girl does that make you’ and looking at you like a piece of meat.”

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment, bub, I do, but I’m almost  _thirty_  okay? I can take care of myself. You know, yeah, I was sort of scared downtown with him, but you know something else? I _loved it._  I loved going on the attack, going on the offensive, I loved getting in the middle of it and really, you know, fucking shit up,” she says fiercely, and he knows her blood is up whenever the f-bombs start dropping. “You get to hit people and Sandor gets to be the double agent. Why? Shireen doesn’t even get to do anything, and then the small, itty bitty part I play, he thinks I messed it up. What kind of shitty sexism is that?”

“Well, I don’t think you’ve ever _been_ in a fight, and no offense but I think you’d make a pretty shitty bodyguard.” He thinks fleetingly of Shireen in a fight, and though she’s petite she’s also scrappy, and he’s lost for a moment, lost in that thought.

“You know what I mean,” she snaps, shaking him back to the now, but there’s a little half smile on her face, and Rickon grins back, even as she sighs with exasperation.

“I am not a child, I don’t need protecting. Well, I mean, I like being protected,” she says, almost shyly, looking down at her clasped hands. “I like being taken care of, but I don’t need to be  _babied._  I need trust and faith that I can handle myself.”

“Look, I get that, I really do, so maybe you should just go tell all this to Sandor, okay? I’m sure he’ll apologize, and you’ll get all your man-hating rage out, and you two can kiss and make up,” he says, suddenly feeling  _very_  weary, and he stands, hands braced on his thighs as he hauls himself up to his full height. Sansa stands up as well, steps into his space and looks up at him.

“Kiss? What do you mean, kiss?” And Rickon is more than happy to mess with his big sister. He shrugs, rolls his eyes and then narrows them, huffs a bit at her reaction.

“God, Sansa, calm down, it’s just an expression, okay?” And he kisses her on the cheek before turning, leaving her standing in her room, as confused now as she is angry, and he grins into the darkened hallway as he closes her door.

He is disappointed to see that in the time it has taken to talk with his sister, the rest of the house seems to be shut up, locked up, lights out and everyone asleep. At least, he assumes Sandor is asleep since his door is shut and there’s no light bleeding out from beneath the door. But when he walks out into the living room, he sees that Shireen is still here, asleep on the sofa under the blanket Sandor used when he too slept on a couch. He flicks on the hall light, casting enough of a glow into the living room to see, but not enough to wake her. Her eyes are closed and she sleeps on her side, the arm beneath her body tucked under her pillow, her other arm dangling off the edge of the sofa, red fingernails grazing the floor.

Rickon bites his lip and steps towards her, winces when the tread of his boot presses into a creaky floorboard, and he pauses a moment, frozen in place as he assesses whether this stirs her, and when it does not, he closes the distance between them, slowly, gingerly easing himself down onto the coffee table in front of her.  _Her arm’ll go to sleep_ , he tells himself, justifying himself when he places his fingers beneath her wrist, lifting it upwards with the gentlest of pressure, tipping his touch to let her arm slide back on top of the sofa.

She sighs deeply in her sleep and he freezes, stills immediately, staring at her closed eyes while his fingers are still touching her wrist. He almost kissed her, earlier, was pretty sure then as he is now that she wanted to kiss him back, and he remembers the feel of her face in his hands, how soft her skin is, even the side with those craters and scars and pockmarks, and he thinks of how much he’s told her of himself, how much of her he’s learned in such a short time. He likes her, a lot; he thinks of all the loneliness she’s poured out when they talk of their parents, sadness that contrasts so brilliantly with the fiery snap to her; he thinks of how she let go of the prison shit and decided to get to know him instead; he thinks of those legs and those candy apple toes. He is smiling down at her sleeping figure, thinking of the luck in meeting her when it strikes him with dazzling, dizzying force that he would not know her if his parents and brother were still alive. Rickon jerks his hand away from her, floored by the realization, deeply disturbed by it and the questions it creates, and when he eventually lays his head on his pillow, in this time capsule of a bedroom, where the ghost of one brother sleeps and the memory of the other still lingers, he is bothered by more than just shades and times gone past.

 

 

Chapter title taken from As The Rush Comes - Motorcycle


	10. Mother and Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114974158223/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-10-mother-and-father)  
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> OKAY GOD. It's taken forever to get some shit started. I want to say, now it's happening. There's at least SOMEthing that will happen each chapter until the end. OH, I almost forgot... I um, I retconned and made Sandor's hair long. I COULDN'T HELP IT OKAY. I kept picturing the kitchen scene in the third POV and it just WASN'T RIGHT with short hair lol. SORRY

Sandor has driven through Belle Meade plenty of times, and even he has rubber-necked at some of the houses he passed, though he’d never admit it to anyone, but this is the first time he’s had just cause to actually stop, to turn onto one of these driveways, to step out of the car and walk into a house here. He feels so utterly out of place that it has his hackles up, and he is reminded, by simple virtue of being in such a luxurious neighborhood, on such a regal looking lawn, that he spent the last year in prison. He is twitchy, nervous, agitated, but this apparently works in his favor, as far as his cover goes, because Joff Lannister is looking at him with approval, clearly thinking that Sandor’s demeanor is for his benefit, for his protection.

What he would protect him from here, Sandor has no clue; they walk now on soft, baby fine grass, having just left the brick driveway, are striding through the walled in front yard, and it looks better suited for a resort or fancy hotel than a home, as sprawling and decadent as it is. Ivy swarms over the walls, making the entire place feel softer, enclosed and enchanted, and there is a koi pond in the center of the lawn, which they pass now on their way to a bricked area where a man and a woman recline on chaise lounges, thick red cushions on wood, and to Sandor’s flabbergasted disbelief, a Tiffany lamp standing on a marble topped table and a large Persian rug beneath it all. He is standing there, wondering who the hell thinks to roll it up before every rainstorm, wondering where the electrical outlet is, when Joff introduces him to the blonde woman reclining on one of the chases, and he is left to wonder if he is looking at the face of a murderer.

She is a classic example of the type of women Sandor would call a cougar, or mutton dressed as lamb, because while she is beautiful, long legged, in excellent shape sitting there in a pair of linen pants and a close fitting top, she is also clearly in her forties, is far older than the young man reclining beside her, the man who was just now kissing her knuckles while she reads Vanity Fair behind a large pair of sunglasses. At their approach she lowers her magazine and regards them over the rims of her glasses, and he sees her eyes stick to him like glue, though he begrudgingly gives her credit for not screaming, for not recoiling, for not making a single emotive gesture.

“Sandor, this is my mother, Cersei Ba- sorry, Cersei Lannister. Mom, this is the man I emailed you about last weekend, the one who chased off those men who were attacking me.” In the week since Rickon’s assault, Joff has swelled the number of attackers to four, has painted such a wildly inaccurate picture that it now includes Sandor beating back two men instead of one, and if Joff remembers that Sandor is witness to the truth, and not to these lies, then he blithely ignores it. Sandor is very nearly impressed with his delusional skills.

Cersei stands fluidly, tossing her magazine on the table with the lamp, taking her time to slide her bare feet into a pair of sandals waiting beside her chaise. They kiss formally on the cheek but do not embrace, and Joff steps beside his mother, and there Sandor stands, under the heavy green eyed gaze of two Lannisters. He feels like stud horse being assessed by breeders, wonders if they’ll start circling him, will pull back his lips to inspect his teeth, and he very nearly smirks at the idea.  _My face may be fucked, but I’ve got good teeth,_  he thinks.

“This is the man who rescued you?” She speaks to her son but keeps her eyes on Sandor, and he looks back without fear or intimidation; they may stand in a ritzy front yard and he may be a broke ex con, but money being thrown around has never impressed him, and besides, he knows from Shireen that looks, in this case, are absolutely deceptive, that making ends meet is getting harder for this family, that this ridiculous lamp and rug could very well be the first things to go if the shit keeps hitting the fan.

“Yes, but like I said there were more people than I could count,” Joff starts, but Cersei lifts her hand to shush him.

“And you’re telling me one of these attackers specifically stated it was because you were a Lannister?” Joff assures her this is the truth, but she shakes her head.

“I wasn’t asking you, Joff, I was asking this man. Sandor, is it?”

“Aye,” he says, and that makes her lift her eyebrows.

“A wild Scotsman, I see, full of bravery, saving my son, hmm?”

Sandor shrugs. “Wasn’t bravery. I just call them as I see them, and I called it an unfair fight, so I intervened. It’s something I’m used to, coming from my line of work.”

Cersei folds her arms across her chest. “Answer the question, now, Sandor. Did he truly mention Joff’s last name?”

Sandor wants to say  _he mentioned your maiden name, the one you so swiftly resumed after your husband’s death_  but what he lacks in social graces he makes up for with common sense, and so he refrains. “He did, though it didn’t make sense to me at the time, not knowing Joff’s last name. But yes, Lannister was what the fucker said.”

“Watch your language around Cersei,” the young man still reclining says, voice hot with emotion and attempted gallantry, but the lady of the house rolls her eyes, a gesture Sandor can see over the rim of her lowered sunglasses.

“It’s all right, Lancel, I’m no shrinking violet, I can handle a swear word or two,” she says. Sandor can hear the boredom in her voice, and he wonders that she can tire of him so quickly in the three months since her husband’s death, but then, she could have dallied with him long before that occurrence. Sandor gives a quick once over of the young man; young and fit, tan even in October. He’s not much older than his lover’s son though they look similar enough in appearance, and something about that unnerves Sandor.

“So, Joff, you think this warrants the necessity for a hired guard?”

“Yes, I do, and I think we should pay him out of Lannister Realty money. There’s no other reason someone would come after me other than the family name, and the family name is a business name,” Joff says smoothly, lifting his chin as he coolly regards his mother. She finally takes her eyes off of Sandor and looks back at her son, and while she plays a tough game, Sandor sees she spoils her son even as an adult.

“All right, fine, but we’ll do it under the table. Joff told me of your, ah, recent incarceration, so I’m going to assume cash will suffice, yes?” Sandor nods and she smiles for the first time since he met her, and it’s a cold, lethal thing that does not reach her eyes, though even if it did he doubts it would warm the bright green, as icy as it is.

“Good. It will save me a headache, and then I won’t have to tell your grandfather. He’s getting twitchy when it comes to added expense. But don’t worry, Clegane, a Lannister always pays her debts. I’ll figure it out,” she says to Joff, and at last he sees the fondness, the tenderness, when she presses a palm to her son’s cheek, smiles sincerely to him before inviting him to sit. He does so, sitting in the chaise beside his mother, so she is flanked by young men, and Sandor is reminded of women with two dogs, walking them down the sidewalk. He stands there as they chat idly until Joff gives him a glance, a bemused look thrown his way, like a bone to a dog.

“Um, what do I say?” He says, turning to his mother. “I’ve never had an employee before.” He turns back to Sandor. “What, dismissed? You’re off the clock? I won’t need you unless I’m going out, so keep your phone on,” he says, and like that Sandor is unceremoniously relieved of his new duty, and relieved he is, to be out of their presence, off their corn silk lawn and back where he belongs, to the house on Belmont where they can figure out how to take these bastards down.

 

“No… No… Yes! Wait! There, I see it, right there,” They have been driving for forty minutes, are ambling the SUV down an unpaved road that is little more than two gravelly tire ruts in the grass parallel to the Harpeth River in the tumbling suburbs outside of Nashville, but they’ve finally found their old swimming spot. He only had to turn the car around twice before they remembered where it was, and now they sit, the autumn sunlight filtering through the trees, their orange and yellow leaves swaying languidly in the barest of breezes. He drapes his arms over the steering wheel and stares up at the sky, wondering if an overcast day would have been better for this.

Sansa sits beside him with a box on her lap, the three urns resting inside them. She has her arms curled protectively around the box, as if the remains of their parents and brother could feel this last hug.  _How long has been since I hugged them? How many chances did I miss out on?_  And it is not prison, so much, that he is thinking of, as it is the locking up of himself that he did, so willingly, back in high school, in those years between his by-the-skin-of-his-teeth graduation and the day the bars slid closed behind him.

They have chosen this spot for the scattering of what’s left of their family’s ashes because this is the place their parents used to come before any of them were born, and because it’s where they used to come on summer Sundays once Rickon learned to swim. It is different from the other bends and stretches of the Harpeth due to the huge tree that arches its long trunk over the river and flattens nearly parallel to the river below, so that if one were sure footed enough like Robb was, one could walk standing up.

There are 2x4s nailed to the trunk in two foot intervals as a makeshift ladder, and he is happy to see that only one of them has fallen off in all the time it’s been here. The 2x4s end where the trunk’s arch flattens, where Robb stole the show, where Bran fell a few times, where Rickon and Arya screeched while Sansa sunbathed below. Aside from the ghostly antics he recalls, so easily now that he stares at the tree trunk, it is a path he remembers well. Up the plank ladder, straddle the tree trunk until the flattest part where the rope swing is tied, to the end of which is secured an ancient set of bicycle handlebars, and Rickon remembers vividly the sensation of gripping the vinyl handles and launching himself off the tree, swinging in a wide arc over the water back and forth as his brothers and sisters shouted for him to let go, to drop into the water.

“I haven’t been here in forever,” Sansa says, to which Rickon grunts in agreement. It hasn’t been quite as long for him, the last time being back in his senior year when he and Wex decided to skip school and swim all day, smoking weed and drinking Gatorade, lying in the shallows upriver, staring at the clouds overhead.

“How the hell are we going to do this?” He asks as they get out of the car, Sansa clutching the box to her chest. “I don’t want to just dump them in the river from the bank. It’ll get all over the place,” he says, referring to the steep, six foot descent from the road to the water’s edge; there are easier places upriver to get to, but then they’d be standing on a pebbly sandbar, dumping their parents and Robb into the slower-flowing shallows, and there is nothing beautiful or sentimental about that. It feels more like littering than honoring their family.

Sansa sighs. “I should have taped the lids shut I guess,” and there is something so hilariously  _wrong_  about that statement that Rickon laughs. “It’s not funny, Ric,” she says, but then they’re sagging against the hood of the car, laughing so hard she is crying and his ribs hurt.

“Oh God, we can’t be laughing, not for this. This is  _serious,_ ” she says after they master themselves once more. They decide that yes, it’s best to do it from the top of the tree, and he’s glad they both wore rubber soled sneakers for this task, though if his sister falls in the cold water in her nice jeans he knows she’ll be pissed.

“I can climb up first and you can hand the urns to me, but I don’t think I can handle three of them up there, I don’t care how good my balance is,” he says, sitting on the curved base of the tree in question; it’s grown and is still massive, but Rickon has grown too, and it doesn’t feel as mighty as it did when he was a kid, doesn’t even feel as big as it did five years ago.

“I think, oh man, I think we’re going to have to combine them. I thought about it at home but it didn’t seem right,” she says, and he understands, there is a morbidity to sifting through the ashes, but he supposes his poor sister has already had to do so, twice, once for Arya and again for Bran, so he steps up to the plate.

“Here, I’ll do it. You’ve dealt first hand with death enough already while I’ve been benched the whole time,” and it’s grateful, her look, when she sets the box on the hood of the car, stepping back to give him room, to give their family respect.

“The blue one is mom, the gray one is dad and the white one is Robb,” she whispers, and to hear them so named, to know that they are just referred to by color, differentiated by shades of metal, brings tears to Rickon’s eyes, unbidden but there all the same, and he blinks once, long and hard, to keep them at bay as he pours first his mother’s ashes into his father’s urn, and then Robb’s on top of them both.  _Together in life, together in death, together entombed,_  he thinks, and now he’s wiping his eyes with a hand as he cradles the remains of his parents and brother to his chest with the other.

Suddenly Rickon  _hates_  the sun, hates it for shining, hates the birds for singing, hates the fucking wind for daring to blow, and a loud sob escapes him, his voice cracking in the middle of it like a teenaged boy, and he feels so hollow, so empty inside that it’s as if those gentle breezes go right through him instead of around. He wishes it were raining, snowing, hailing. He wishes the sun was gone, blotted out by dark clouds, clouds grayer than his father’s urn, because that would make sense, that would better match how he feels.

“Hey,” his sister says, voice hushed, and there is her hand on his shoulder, fingers pressing into his skin as she gently draws him back and away from the car, turns him towards her to hug him, the urn pressed between them as they cling to each other on a country road on an October afternoon, as brother and sister cradle the ashes of their loved ones, the three of them mingling there together, and Rickon wonders, not for the first time and not for the last, where souls go when the bodies are gone.

“I’m okay,” he says after a while, and it’s only partly a lie. His sister dutifully releases him and takes the urn from his hands, stepping back a pace or two to gaze at him. Her dark hair is a constant source of jarring surprise to him, because he knows it should be lit up like the leaves that dance above them, but it’s just  _there_ , now, as dark and solemn as the two of them.

“Go on, you go first, and I’ll hand it to you when I can get up as far as I can,” she says, nodding to the tree, and he nods back, turning to climb the thing. He wears a long sleeved shirt with a t-shirt layered on top, and with the sun on his back he begins to sweat, begins to wish he’d not worn two layers. But he’s up in the red and orange shade soon enough, body remembering this climb though it has been years, and the 2x4s look so small, so ordinary beneath his fully grown hands; he smiles to think of his father climbing this, as nimble as a boy, to think of Robb, handsome, eldest Robb who would climb with hands and feet up until the plamks stopped and the tree trunk evened out and then unfold to his full height, arms outstretched like he was on a tightrope before cannon-balling to the deep water below.

He’s wobblier than Robb ever was, but he seats himself on the trunk, legs hanging off one side, and he waits for his sister as she climbs, one handed, until the boards stop, and with an outstretched hand, passes him the urn. He holds it protectively to his chest as he scoots further down the tree to give her room to sit, and soon they are like two giant, long legged birds sitting in the tree, slightly hunched over to give themselves more balance, and they gaze in silence to the flowing river beneath them. It’s been a wet summer, and while there are no rapids by any stretch of the definition the river is still moving swiftly, and to Rickon that feels appropriate.

“Ready when you are,” he says after some time, and his sister sighs, the deep, rich sigh of someone in mourning. “Remember, San, it’s not really goodbye. Not really. You can conjure them up anytime you want, to say hey, to say I love you.”

“I know,” she whispers, and when he looks at her there are tears on her face now. He smiles faintly, because this is how they’ve been lately, this is how they’ve fallen in step with one another. One stands strong while the other breaks down, and the other pulls together in time to catch the other. “I know, it’s just that is the last of them. The last physical thing of them, and when that’s gone, who do I hug? Who do I hold onto?”

“You hold on to me, okay? You hold on to me, because I’m here and I need you,” he says, meaning every word of it; since he got out of prison he has, for the first time since he was a little kid, turned to his family, and it has been life changing, like getting a preserver thrown to him from a passing ship just before he drowns. She looks up from the water to him, her eyes all the bluer from her tears and smiles.

“Of course I will,” she says, and then he holds out the urn, sun glinting off his father’s wedding band on his index finger, because Ned Stark’s hands were bigger than his son’s. He waits for her hand to join his on the rounded belly of the thing, and there are two gold bands glittering beneath the thinning canopy of leaves above them. When she removes the lid, together they the eldest and youngest tip the urn over, watch as the breeze carries the ashes of Ned, Cat and Robb down into the swirling waters of the Harpeth to be one with the fish and the reeds and stones and the river. He and Sansa hold hands and sit there, legs swinging to and fro as they grow comfortable at such a height and in such a precarious perch, talking some but not much, until the sun slips low in the sky, skimming the horizon and casting long shadows, and only then do they climb back down the tree, only then do they say  _goodbye_ to their family and turn from the water, arms slung across each other’s shoulders because they still have people left to hug.

 

She takes a long bath when they come home, night having fallen on the car ride home, leaving her feeling cold, and sitting above the river for so long has her yearning for water. Sansa adds bubbles and lavender oil, lights a few candles and pours herself a glass of wine, and it’s very nearly a shade of her former self, the California girl who pampered herself and prided herself on doing so. Now it feels good, but there’s no pride in the bubbles here, not like there was last weekend when they manipulated the situation, got Joff to walk right into their trap and got him to hire Sandor. Thinking of him makes her sigh, and she sips her wine before sinking lower into the water, staring at her toes as they fiddle with the faucet.

Sandor. They still haven’t really spoken since their little fight, as he’s been working all week, and where the three of them usually eat together at the little table in the kitchen or in front of the TV, he’s made himself scarce, and she’s fairly certain he is avoiding her, and she’s not sure whether she’s proud or sad because of it; probably both, if she’s honest with herself, and she doesn’t want to lie anymore. After everything that’s happened, she wants to shed the illusions and pettiness of everyday life, she wants to shed them like an old skin and stand there, raw perhaps but renewed, clean, true to herself.

After half an hour or so she drains the tub, rinses off the suds and the oils under the shower and dresses for bed. She’s exhausted, knows Rickon is as well since he showered the moment they got back from the river and then disappeared upstairs, but she is hungry, needs water after the dehydration of wine and a hot soak.

She is tempted to just cross through Sandor’s room, as it has two doors, one to the hall and the other opening into the kitchen, but his door is closed, means he is likely there, and she doesn’t want to violate his privacy. In a pair of loose old pajama pants and a tank top she pads across the living room, shivering at the dip in temperature. October is flying by and it’s getting colder; there is talk of a cold snap on the news during weather segments, and Sansa is pondering the merits of getting half a cord of firewood as she rounds the corner and walks through the dining room into the kitchen, where she stops in her tracks.

He is standing with his hip against the counter, back presented to her as he gazes out the French doors into the backyard, a sub sandwich in his hand, and she can see him chewing, silhouetted in the low light shining from under the top cabinets. He’s shirtless and she sees his smooth skin, so unfairly contrasted with the gnarl of scars on his face, the broad flat planes of his shoulder blades and the dip of spine that disappears beneath the low slung waistline of his loose black track pants. His hair, for the first time since she’s met him, is loose, hanging black past his shoulders, and it makes Sansa think of wild horses. He is beauty and sadness in one, a fine specimen of masculinity and strength, a hallmark of heartbreaking loneliness eating alone in the dark, and she feels  _bad_ because she knows she had a hand in this.

“Hey,” she says softly, stepping into the room, hugging herself though he looks like he could use one himself. He jumps slightly, turns to find the source of the surprise, chews and swallows hastily before clearing his throat.

“Hey,” he echoes, setting his sandwich down on the wax paper it came in, dusting his hands off before folding his arms across his chest. “Sansa, listen,” he says right as she says “I’m sorry, Sandor” and then they stop, waiting a moment before chuckling weakly, awkwardly, both of their gazes dropping to the tile floor. She sees coffee stains and shards of mug with her mind’s eye, as if everything in this house has a ghost now.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” he says with a soft, hoarse rumble, when he’s sure now that he has the floor, “far from it, in fact.” His head is bowed but he lifts his eyes almost warily, regarding her from beneath his brows and she smiles before she can help herself.

“And I don’t think you’re a pig,” she says, and when he tips his head to the side in confusion, frowning at her, she laughs, blushes and presses a hand to her forehead as she closes her eyes. “I’m sorry, I forgot. I told that to Rickon, not to you. I was so mad,” she says, unable to keep the smile from creeping up, and then explains her misandric tirade in her bedroom last Saturday night, and he has the sense of humor to laugh with her.

“Poor Rickon,” he says heavily with a shake of his head, but even in this low light she sees what she can only call a twinkle in his eyes, and then they chuckle again and it takes her a moment to remember why she came in here in the first place. She gives him a sidelong smile and walks fully into the kitchen, opening the fridge. She stands in the rectangle of bright light to stare at what little food remains there, and she sighs.

“I forgot to go shopping this week,” she says, pushing aside the Brita and the milk to see if anything tempting lurks behind them. No dice. “I’m surprised I’m still alive half the time, I can barely seem to take care of myself, anymore.”

“There’s been a lot on your plate, lately,” he says, and she hears him rummaging in a drawer.

“Too bad there’s no food on it,” she replies, and he huffs a laugh, a soft exhalation that for some reason makes her smile.

“Well, how about now?” She closes the fridge door to look at him, and he’s got a plate in his hands with the majority of his sandwich on it, though he has cut off about a third of it, the part from which he’d been taking bites. Her jaw drops, but she’s smiling too.

“I can’t take your food!” It’s incredibly kind of him, and she recognizes it as an olive branch, but still, big men like him must get hungry. Sandor shrugs, setting the plate on the counter, as if she is a feral animal too scared to take the food from his hands.

“I uh, I already ate a whole one before starting in on this one,” he says, and he’s  _shy_ , and that broadens her smile. She approaches him before he thinks she is laughing at his offer, takes the plate and thanks him.

“Two subs, huh? Careful of that girlish figure, there, Sandor,” she grins before taking a bite of his sandwich. It’s an Italian grinder, and Sansa can’t remember the last time she had one. It’s delicious.

“I’ll have you know I worked ten hours today and haven’t eaten since this morning,” he says, and the defensive tinge to his voice is halfhearted; there’s humor there too, and she gives him a closed-mouth smile as she chews. They stand there, backs up against the counter, eating the divided remains of his sandwich in what she realizes is companionable silence.

“Do you want any tea?” She asks when she’s finished, having wolfed it down far faster than she normally eats, she was that hungry, and she puts the kettle on to make herself a cup of chamomile, and he laughs.

“Tea’s not quite my thing, lass,” he says, putting her plate in the sink and pouring himself some water from the Brita. “Think I’ll watch some television before hitting the sack. G’night,” he says, crossing the kitchen to the doorway, and she nods, says _Good night,_  glancing back to watch him go, but he pauses in the threshold, a large hand resting on the door frame next to his face. “I uh, I really am sorry, Sansa. About, you know. About losing my temper and talking to you like that. I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s all right, I understand,” she says, turning to face him fully. “Rickon said you were just worried, and I get that now, I do. Just, you know, have a little more faith in me, huh?” She smiles and he makes that little huff of laughter again as he nods, gives the door frame a pat with his large palm before disappearing from the room, and she feels his absence far more acutely that she would have thought.

The kettle whistles and she hastily takes it off, not wanting to wake Rickon, and after she pours herself a mug she hesitates; the food gave her a boost of energy and she’s not nearly as wiped out as she was before coming here and talking with Sandor. She does not feel like reading and she does not feel like lying in bed staring at the walls, so she drifts through the living room towards the TV room where Sandor stretches out, his long legs crossed at the ankle, feet propped on the coffee table, one arm folded behind his head as he watches an old episode of Myth Busters. She approaches from behind the sofa, coming to stand beside him.

“Do you mind some extra company?” She asks.

He startles, jumps so suddenly he spills water on his bare chest, and the air is full of  _Jesus Christ_ and  _You scared the hell out of me_  and  _How the bloody hell did you do that_  and Sansa is laughing helplessly, her own tea in danger of spilling as she nearly doubles over from the hilarity of this man, who is 6’5” if he’s an inch, hopping around sweeping the chilled water from his bare chest with his hands. “Oh hell, now my bloody pants are wet,” he says, brushing past her to go dry off or change them. “Cold hearted woman,” he mutters to her, but she can’t even stop laughing to apologize.

 She makes the bold move to sit on the center of the three sofa cushions, legs tucked up to the right, determined to show him she’s not intimidated by him, isn’t mad at him anymore, and to his credit there is no hesitation when he returns, resuming his original seat to her left. She blushes when she realizes there is slight disappointment to see he’s put on a shirt, a white crew neck undershirt to go with his red and black flannel pajama pants, and the new outfit makes her think of lumberjacks and pine trees, reminds her of that woodsy smell of his. Sansa takes a hasty sip of tea, burning her tongue in the process, and when she says  _Ugh, crap_ from it there is a tightness to his mouth that suggests he is fighting back a smile, and it makes her bite her lip to fight a smile of her own.

They sit and finish the episode of Myth Busters, idly discussing this explosion or that, but her mind soon drifts elsewhere, to the sounds of a swift current and the rustling of leaves, of birdsong and the sound of her brother breaking down and crying over their parents’ and brother’s ashes. Her gaze drops from the TV screen to the rapidly cooling tea in her mug, and she sips it because she has nothing else to do, except maybe cry, and then he’s there, like he was a couple of weeks ago, this most surprising source of comfort for her, lately.

“Hey. Hey, Sansa, are you all right? Where’d you go?” And so she tells him. She mentions the urns, now all empty, that are still on the mantle though they hold nothing, anymore, how they combined the ashes, how they fell and swirled and gusted on the breezes into the river below, how it should have been more like glitter, for how brightly her mom and dad shone, how vibrant her brother was, but the ashes were muted and reminded her of muddy lakeshore sand, and how  _wrong_  that felt.

 He does not mute the television or turn it off, and for that she’s grateful as she pours out the details of the afternoon on the Harpeth; he does not look at her, either, simply stares at the coffee table while she mostly just stares at her tea. It’s an odd sort of confession, but she feels better for it, can even keep the tears at bay while she speaks, and she feels such massive gratitude for the ability to just speak. It makes her realize she hasn’t called Jeyne once since coming back from her shortened trip to Point Loma, and it makes her wonder at the security she’s found here back home, and if she means Rickon or the house or Sandor, she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care.

“I feel like there’s nothing left of me to break, anymore. My heart’s gone, shattered and dried up and blown away. My thoughts feel broken, too, and my soul… I don’t even know if I have one, anymore,” she says finally, and at that he finally turns his face to look at her in full, his gray eyes on her, the lamplight from behind her casting its gentle glow on him. He props his elbow up on the back of the sofa and tips his head against his knuckles.

“You’ve a soul, Sansa. If anyone under this roof has one, it’s you,” he says, and she smiles sadly.

“If I’ve got one then we all do, Sandor. One thing I’m not, here, is lonely, and I think one lost soul would feel it if there were no others.”

“If you’re a lost soul then I suppose I am as well. But I reckon yours likely has a map,” he says, and they both huff at that.

It’s the last thing they say to one another because they seem to understand one another, now. He takes her sorrow and the rehashing of the day and absorbs it, holds it for her somehow, and to have someone else to help carry it is a soothing thing, and soon Sansa is drowsing on the sofa, her head resting heavier and heavier on the cushion behind her. The noise from the television is less voices and bombs going off now, is more the gentle humming of dragon flies, of river water swirling below her dangling legs, and there is the warmth of a body beneath her cheek, the clean smell of a man, or of the woods maybe, and then sleep takes her.

Sansa wakes some time later, finds herself in her bed, tucked in beneath the duvet she brought from California, as if it could hide the fact that it is her parents’ bed she sleeps in. There is momentary confusion as to how she got there, and she wonders if she’s drunk, if she passed out here, but no, the last time she got drunk was well over a month ago with her brother, and she was not with Rickon, she was with Sandor, drinking tea, not wine. It dawns on her that he must have carried her here; that she fell asleep on the sofa after shedding her pain, and while the thought of him carrying her and tucking her in makes her smile, the absence of his presence is a profound letdown after it was such a comfort to her when she dozed off. The only way she gets back to sleep is to conjure up the warmth of him, the smell of him, the way he assured her she has a soul, the way she knows he has one, too.

 

 

 

Chapter title taken from Mother and Father - Broods


	11. Dirty Laundry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A more lighthearted chapter, with a glimpse into Rickon's past and a couple of glimpses into how Sansa and Sandor keep getting closer to one another.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114979460533/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-11-dirty-laundry)

When he walks in the door, bone tired from a day of troweling seams, putting up and taping off dry wall, mixing plaster and putting in insulation, he in unprepared for the sight of Sansa drifting from the kitchen, her hair in enormous rollers and her legs exposed to the upper thigh in a gray jersey robe, and he can tell from the sway of her breasts that she’s naked underneath it, and his mind reels. He imagines unrolling the rollers to feel her hair, like unfurled bolts of silk in his hands, wonders how it would look curling against her breasts. Flashes of vivid, textured images crop up in his mind: how the robe feels against her skin, how it would feel beneath his hands, how easy it could slip from her shoulders with just the lightest of pushes from his fingertips. He drops his gaze and concentrates very hard on putting his keys down on the sofa table in the living room, anything to keep the thoughts at bay, to keep whatever’s happening in his pants from giving him away.  _Down boy,_ he thinks, no, he threatens; because Sandor is fairly sure he will die from embarrassment if she catches him gaping at her with a fucking tent in his jeans.

“Oh my God,” she says, and he looks up to her warily from the corner of his eye; she’s holding a glass of red wine in one hand, her other forearm pressed across her chest as she quickens her pace and crosses the living room towards her room, and he thinks he’ll pour himself one as well, after the day he’s had and the shock of seeing her so beautifully undone. “I am so sorry, this is beyond embarrassing. I know you come home from work right about now, I should have timed myself better,” she says, casting a sheepish smile to him over her shoulder before disappearing down the hall, and to hear her say that,  _I know you come home_  makes the already constant ache in him expand. “I should have been paying attention. Let me go put on something decent,” and there is the click of her bedroom door as it closes.

He is left with the dullness that occurs whenever she leaves the room, so he makes a beeline to the kitchen for that red wine, and by the time she’s decent, which is the robe over a tank top and a pair of yoga pants, Sandor is slouched on the living room sofa, knees cocked out from fatigue. He watches over the rim of his glass as she enters the room and sit in one of the wingbacks and he suppresses a sigh, suppresses his desire. It has been over a week since he carried her to her bed and she wound sleep-confused arms around his neck, but no matter how many days go by he cannot forget. He cannot forget the smell of her, lavender and chamomile, the way her hair caught in the scruff of his beard when he first hefted her into his arms and she tucked her head against the line of his jaw. He cannot forget and he suffers for it.

“I can’t believe I’m going out on a date with Joff freakin’ Lannister tonight,” she says, sipping her wine and shaking her head. “Coming on to a guy in a bar is one thing, but keeping up a persona throughout the entire evening? Ugh.”

“Good thing I’ll be there, then,” he says, trying to keep the crackle of anger out of his voice. He has played bodyguard to Joff for two and a half weeks so far, is forced to watch the prick come on to women and get drunk with his horrible friends, and it has become clear that though he’s on the inside, so to speak, he is also kept very much on the periphery. Cue Sansa at Rickon’s suggestion, sending Joff a very concerned sounding text about the assault under the trees downtown, and an exchange that consisted of her lies, his bragging, and at last a date. They all hope it will lead to a movie at his place, maybe a dinner at his mom’s, anything to get them an in.  _Read his emails,_  Shireen suggested.  _Check his texts,_  Rickon asked. All Sandor wants is for the shithead to keep his hands to himself.

“You poor thing, working all day only to stand around staring at some slime ball all night,” she says with a tut, and he smiles, cannot help himself, to hear the concern in her voice, to know it is sincere and not just empty words.

“Speaking of, I need to shower. Himself wants me at his house at seven, and I’ve barely an hour to clean up and get there,” he says, getting to his feet with a weary groan. He is getting too old for this shit.

“Oh, um, actually, Rickon’s in there,” she says, wincing with sympathy as she points a finger to the wall behind her in the general direction of the bathroom.

“What,  _now_?” Sandor says with a sigh of exasperation. They know one another now, and he knows that Sansa prefers to be clean before bed, like he does, and Rickon prefers to shower in the morning. This little switch of Rickon’s means he will most likely be late, and considering how annoying Joff can be when everything goes his way, a hiccup in the plan will surely mean Sandor will get an earful tonight.

“Yeah,” Sansa says, and there is a devious little grin on her face, and she leans in towards him, eyes widening as she whispers conspiratorially. “Ric’s got a date.”

“Oh, aye? I assume it’s with our other crew member,” he says, amused, thinking it can be no one else, not with the way they circle each other.

“Yes! Although, I guess we were invited too but Rickon’s the only one without plans. So it’s not like a date-date, but it basically became one when we couldn’t come.”

“What about Renly?”

“Oh, well,” she says, and he barks out a laugh to see the romantic matchmaker side of her deflate somewhat when she realizes it’s not such a romantic gesture after all. “Yeah, I guess there’s that,” she pouts, finishing her wine. “But, you know, he  _is_  showering and he’s taking  _forever_ , which means he’s putting in some effort, so there’s that as well,” and she smiles, gives him a firm nod, and he hasn’t the heart to tell her the other reason a young man might be taking so long in the shower before going to meet a girl.

“Yes, he  _is_ taking forever, the bastard, and I’ll be late because of it,” Sandor sighs, gets to his feet as he drains his glass of wine.

“Just use my bathroom, I don’t mind. Although my stuff is bound to smell more girly than yours,” she says, and he is not sure if it’s the words she says or the coy way she says them that has him tingling. He accepts her offer and before he knows it he’s standing naked in her tub, water drumming on his back between the shoulder blades. Her shampoo smells of coconuts and her soap smells just like her skin, and again he is assaulted with memories of her arms around his neck, the bend of her legs as they draped over his arm, the curve of her back and the press of her hipbone into his abdomen. It is all he can do not to stretch out the shower like Rickon, and he struggles to contain himself when he realizes he must use her towel, must wrap it around his hips while envisioning the parts of her body this towel has hugged. He gives himself a good hard glare in the half fogged mirror, takes in the visual reminder that his fantasies will remain exactly that, and stalks out of her room and into his, closing the door behind him.

By the time he’s dressed and ready to make a hasty beeline for Joff’s apartment off West End, Rickon has emerged, is fresh as a daisy and looking more clean-cut than Sandor has ever before seen him. He and Sansa are talking in the living room, Sansa still in the wingback, Rickon sitting on the coffee table, back to Sandor.

“Fair bit better than prison orange,” he says, referencing the clean jeans and black button down shirt that Sandor suspects are new. Rickon glances over his shoulder and grins with a shrug.

“I’m not sitting in that fancy house at that fancy dining room table wearing a dirty Op Ivy shirt, even I know better than that,” he says, standing with a stretch. “I need to go move the 4Runner, I’ll be right back.”

“What for?” Sandor asks him, and Rickon grins again, brushing past him towards the front door.

“Because it’s blocking Robb’s motorcycle,” he says, “and I’m going to take it.”

Sandor turns to Sansa as the front door closes, and she is grinning like a cat with cream. “I told you it was a date,” she says, standing up to get ready for her own date with Joff, her hands already unraveling the lock of hair from around a roller; his fingers ache to take over the task. “No girl can resist a bad boy on a motorcycle,” and Sandor is left to ponder the merits of trading in his truck for a bike.

 

She decides on an oversized H&M sweater, a pair of black shorts and flats, and it feels strange to wear shoes around the house when she is so used to roaming the place barefoot. It’s strange, too, to be somewhat dressed up and in makeup, and Shireen realizes that Renly is correct when he calls her a recluse; she thinks maybe she should get a job to get out of the house, but the idea of people giving her shit about her face makes it a daunting proposition, and once again she is grateful for her inheritance, for Renly’s generosity, for the luxury of being able to hide herself away from a world that has only served to wound her.

She is giving herself a last minute appraisal in the full length mirror in the corner of her bedroom when she hears the rumble of an engine, glances out her bedroom window in time to see the single headlight of a motorcycle as it turns onto the driveway and her jaw drops. The rider pulls all the way up behind her uncle’s car before shutting it off, and sure enough, when he takes off his helmet she can see it’s him, and Shireen grins.  _Rickon Stark. Of course he’s on a motorcycle._  It does not elude her that this man, the ex con on the motorcycle, is the man who willingly holds her marred face in his hands, the man who not only looks past the scars but seems to not even _see_ them. He may be rough on the outside but there is sweetness to him, there is no judgment, no criticism.

It’s a wonder to her that such tragic circumstances have brought the nicest people to her, and it’s already hard to think things like  _if I had my uncle Robert back I’d never know them._ Because while of course she wants Robert back, she would be sorry to lose Rickon and Sansa, even grumpy old Sandor, and these are the thoughts in her mind when she goes downstairs, when the doorbell rings right on cue and Renly bellows from the kitchen for her to get it.

“I’m already on it,” she yells over her shoulder before taking a breath and pulling open the door.

They stand rooted to the spot, neither of them moving for a moment as they regard one another through the closed storm door. He’s _sexy_ , standing there with his helmet under his arm, the sleeves of his black shirt cuffed and rolled up to the elbow even though there’s a slight nip to the air, and when his eyes drop to her legs, roam their length, she bites her lip. He is checking her out, and she loves it, loved it weeks ago outside of the restaurant when she caught him staring. She waits until he lifts his eyes back to hers, and he is shameless, not embarrassed at all going by the look on his face when she pushes open the storm door. He holds it open for himself so she steps back, gesturing him inside.

“You look nice,” he says, turning towards her as he steps in, walking backwards into the foyer to keep his eyes on her. Shireen grins.

“I always look nice,” she says loftily, and he laughs.

“Yeah, that’s true,” and such a simple admittance, so casually offered, has her beaming as she leads him through the dining room and into the kitchen.

“Rickon, my man, how’re you doing tonight?” Renly says. He’s already had a drink and is working on his second, is loose as a goose as he himself would say. She glances back and Rickon is grinning.

“Not too bad, how ‘bout yourself?” Shireen reaches out for his helmet, tugs it out from the space between his body and arm, making him look from Renly down to her. “Hey, thanks,” he murmurs, and the close proximity to him reminds her that the last time she saw him he had his hands on her, made the fractional move to kiss her, or so she thought. _I should have kissed him, I should have just gone for it,_ but then there’s the fact that he didn’t kiss her at the door, didn’t even make a move aside from giving her elevator eyes, and so it remains a mystery to her. She walks back to the foyer with the helmet and sets it on the little table by the door, and returns to the kitchen to see that Renly has already cracked open a beer for Rickon, and their guest is sitting casually on the kitchen table on the other side of the counter.

“We’re having halibut tonight, I hope you’re okay with fish. Shit,” Renly says, pausing in the middle of chopping parsley. “Please tell me you eat fish,” and Rickon laughs.

“Bran went through a pescatarian phase in high school, so yeah, I eat fish. Halibut sounds great,” he says. Shireen pours herself a glass of white wine and decides to sit, like Rickon does, on the table itself, and they sit side by side, watching Renly as he dredges the fish in a mixture of egg white and horseradish and then in panko crumbs while her uncle asks Rickon questions about the night they took down Joff.

“So you beat him up pretty good, huh?” Renly says, pausing to sip his gin and tonic, eying their guest over his glass.

“I’d like to think so,” Rickon says, and Shireen rolls her eyes.

“He’s being modest. Sansa said he dropped him like a bag of bricks. Made him cry, too. I only wish I could have been there to see it,” she grins, remembering how predatory Rickon looked when crossing the intersection, a black slash of anger in the streetlight, and she wishes she could have seen him channel all that rage into the punches he threw at her cousin’s face.

“He _cried?_ ” Renly says with a laugh as he turns to the oven and puts the fish in. “Oh, but that’s hilarious. Shireen, you must be beside yourself with glee after all the stuff that little shit used to do to you. I’m sure you wish you could’ve done it yourself.” He sets about sautéing the asparagus.

“I thought of her while hitting him,” Rickon says suddenly, and Shireen looks at him, at his profile as he looks down at his beer, resting in his hand on his thigh. “I thought about her and all the crap he did to her, so you know,” he says, tilting his head away from her, sliding a sidelong glance her way that gives her goose bumps. “Your presence was there. You were represented, Shireen.”

“Thanks,” she whispers, looking back at him for a long moment before dropping her gaze and sipping her wine. When she looks up at Renly, he has a huge, shit-eating grin on his face and she scowls at him before sliding off the table to go lay out silverware and napkins.

Dinner is delicious, and Rickon says as much, making her uncle beam with pride and delight; he’s always been a good cook but ever since this business with uncle Robert, he’s been as reclusive as she has, and without much to do he has spent the majority of his time in the kitchen trying out new recipes.

They are halfway through their meal when Renly, on his third drink now, a glass of wine to go with dinner, sits back in his chair and says “So, Rickon, this jail thing.” They are both seated at the heads of the table, Shireen seated between them on Ren’s left and Rickon’s right, and now her gaze ping-pongs back and forth between them, because this can’t be good. She knows he’s sensitive about his time in prison, knows he hates to be judged for it, and she is about to come to his rescue when he replies, chewing and swallowing his food, setting his fork down.

“What about it?” Rickon is not guarded like he was when she asked, but she thinks she knows him well enough now to see that past his seemingly easy smile, he is on alert. He braces his elbows against the table, clasps his hands and rests his chin on his laced knuckles.

“Oh come on, you know. What did you do to get there? The suspense is killing me. Was it grand theft auto?”

“No,” Rickon says, chuckling.

“Assault?” Renly says hopefully, clearly thinking of the attack on Joff.

“Nope,” he says with a shake of his head.

“Highway robbery!” Renly says with a flourish of his wine glass before drinking deeply from it, eyes never leaving Rickon.

“Close,” Rickon says with an unreadable smile, and now both Shireen and Renly stare at him, but Rickon only looks at Shireen. He gazes at her for a long time, a silent question hovering between them. _Does that bother you, Shireen?_ _How do you see me now?_ it seems to say and before she knows what she’s doing she’s shrugging a shoulder to him, tipping her head with a smile, trying to say _It doesn’t bother me, it isn’t you, it’s just a thing_. He hums by way of response, nodding a bit, and she feels a thrill at this little bit of silent communication between them. He unclasps his hands, picks up his fork and pierces his last spear of asparagus, stares at it for a moment before setting it down, and Shireen is looking at her own plate when he speaks again.

“I had this buddy, back in high school,” Rickon says, and she turns her head so quickly she nearly pulls a muscle, because she wasn’t expecting him to go into any detail, having long ago reconciled herself with maybe never knowing. He glances at her, rolls his eyes with a grin at her reaction, but he drops his eyes as he pushes his food around his plate. “Wex Pyke. Had some family trouble, and since I thought I had family troubles, too, we acted out. But I mean, you know, his mom left them and his dad would hit the bottle pretty regularly and then hit Wex. I was just a little shit, is all.” Shireen realizes she is holding her breath as he talks about his past, and she lets it out in a rush, earning her another smirk and look from him. This time, when he continues, he does it while holding her gaze.

“We started getting into little bits of trouble here and there. Skipping school, fist fights, shoplifting, that kind of thing. And you know, we did do drugs, just like, smoked weed, but the _real_ thrill for us was the stealing. Soon, it turned into breaking into cars. Wex’s dad caught us because like idiots, we did it on the same street as his house,” he laughs suddenly, clearly trapped in the memory, closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“Jesus, we were so stupid. Wex got beat up pretty badly after that, and if I hadn’t run like hell I think his old man would have kicked my ass, too,” Rickon says. “Instead he called _my_ dad, and man, I got hell for it. This was during the summer after graduation, and he made me mow the lawns of every single one of his friends, all summer long, free of charge. Smart man, my dad. I stayed out of trouble for a little bit after that,” he says, and when he talks of his father his eyes drop. Rickon drains the rest of his beer and sighs.

“That didn’t last though, and so sooner or later Wex and I are hanging out and we decide we’re going to do something bigger. Stealing from the mall, beer runs from Kroger, breaking into cars, we’d done it, and it was getting boring. The thrill, like I said. It all happened when we broke into some guy’s car and found a gun.” His voice is low, and now she sees it, the regret, the remorse, the pain, and it’s no wonder he doesn’t like telling the story, doesn’t like reliving the decision that got him locked up, that made him miss out on the last six months of his parents’ and brother’s lives.

She glances to Renly, and he is captivated, his chin in his hand, but she can tell he doesn’t understand his faux pas in goading this out of Rickon, and she makes a mental note to apologize on his behalf. He’s on his fifth drink now, and she rolls her eyes. _I’ll have to wring him out before he goes to bed._

“So now we have a weapon, and we decide, hey, we can do something bigger with this, we can do something we’ve never done before.”

“What did you do?” Renly asks breathlessly, voice hushed, as if it is some scary ghost story he’s listening to and not the tragic story of a kid essentially setting fire to his future.

“Ah,” Rickon says, holding up a finger, “not what we did, but what we _tried_ to do. We tried to rob a Circle K.”

“Holy shit,” Renly says, and Shireen glares at him.

“It’s not like he pillaged a town, Ren, Jesus. Go on, Rickon, just ignore him. I mean, if you want to go on, you’ve basically just told us.”

“Nah, it’s all right. I don’t see hate in your eyes, so that’s good,” he says, and his smile is equal parts sad and hopeful, and that makes her smile in return. “So let’s see. Wex had the gun and he was going to hold up the Circle K, and I was in his car.”

“You were the getaway driver,” Shireen says, and there she is, eating dinner, crushing on a guy who drove the getaway car.

“I was,” he murmurs, voice dropped as though this were an intimate dinner with just the two of them, “just like you were, Shireen.” She is floored when he says that, when it dawns on her that they have this strange, wild thing in common, and she finds it is impossible to look away from him. Renly breaks the moment by clearing his throat, and Rickon grins at her before continuing, sparing at last a look to Renly.

“But we had made a deal that if a customer is in the store, it’s a no go. We didn’t want anybody getting hurt, us or them, but Wex, on account of everything his life had dealt him, I guess, would get kind of jumpy sometimes. And I know it’s dumb for _me_ to say this, but it sort of turned him into a shitty decision maker. So I made him swear to back off if someone other than the cashier came in.

“Of course you know what happened next,” he says, shaking his head again and sighing.  Rickon closes his eyes, and whether it’s to help him remember or because he cannot maintain eye contact anymore, Shireen cannot tell. “Ah, man. So, yeah, this big guy walks in and I’m sitting there with the engine on, damn near about to piss myself I’m so nervous. Sorry for the imagery,” he says to her, and she laughs, waving it off. “I have so much adrenaline I just shut the car off and run into that store, screaming for Wex to stand down. The big customer guy, when he sees that I’m friends with this dude who has a gun, KO’s me with a single punch to the gut, and I guess Wex freaks out. He fires the gun into the ceiling to scare the big guy away, and takes off running, right past him and right past me.”

“He _left_ you?” Shireen is aghast, has a hand to her mouth as she stares at him. He nods slowly, opening his eyes to rest them on her. There is almost too much, in his expression, for her to bear: sadness, shame, regret, betrayal, and the instantaneous loss of trust and friendship, right out the door.

“Yep. He left me. He threw the gun beside me as he ran out and he left me.”

“Wait, if he threw the gun, then, that means that he was trying--”

“To frame me, yeah. Poor stupid Wex forgot about his fingerprints, though,” Rickon says, sitting back with a sigh. “So that’s how I got a lighter sentence, not being the one holding the gun. I never touched that gun,” he says with some conviction, and she can tell it is the thing he must have clung to, in prison, that he clings to now.

“What happened to Wex?” Renly asks, and Rickon shrugs.

“I don’t know. I refused to rat him out,” he says simply, as if all people are so guided by their integrity.

“But he wasn’t loyal to you. He threw you under the bus,” Renly protests, drinking his wine.

“I know, and it sucked and it felt like shit,” he says. “No way I was gonna do that same shitty thing and make someone else feel as bad as it made me feel,” and if there was any doubt to how Shireen feels about him, it’s gone when she hears him say that, when the man behind the sentence is revealed. She knew he was a good person, but this here is just further confirmation.

“So yeah, that’s the story of why dumb shit Rickon Stark went to the slammer,” he says with a sigh as he sits back in his chair. “Anyways, great halibut, Mr. Baratheon,” and he grins when that startles a laugh out of her uncle.

Dinner is soon over, and the three of them carry the dishes to the kitchen, but when they offer to help him wash up Renly is adamant, turning off the sink faucet and turning to face them with his hands braced against the counter, as if protecting the dirty dishes from them.

“You kids go talk or have a drink or go for a spin on that big bad motorcycle of yours. It’s a nice, clear night,” he says, glancing back over the sink to look out the window into the inky backyard, as if that could tell him anything. Shireen knows what he’s doing, and when she glances to Rickon she sees he knows as well. He gives her a smirk and a shrug, follows her out of the kitchen, down the hall to the den.

“Whaddya say, huh, sugar?” He says in his overblown gangster boss voice when she turns to face him and it makes her laugh.

“Sure, why the hell not?” They stand there, grinning at each other like idiots before he turns thoughtful, rubbing his hand over his freshly shaven chin.

“It’ll be cold though. You’ll want to change into jeans, I think, though I’m sorry to see those shorts go,” he murmurs. Her pulse quickens to hear him speak so openly, to see his eyes light up, bright and hot, teasing, amused, playful.

“Aren’t _you_ forward,” she says, and he chuckles, sitting on the arm of the sofa, tilting his head as he looks at her.

“I’ve been in prison, Shireen, in case you weren’t paying attention. A gorgeous pair of legs is a terrible thing to cover up,” and his gaze lowers once more, sending a shiver up her spine, and she covers it up by stepping backwards, hugging herself as she leaves the room.

“Wait right here, I’ll go change,” she says, and she’s breathless after jogging up the stairs, but not from the exercise. She wiggles into a pair of jeans and some heels, grabs her purse and slings it across her body, and by the time she’s downstairs he has his helmet and is standing by the door, waiting for her. Renly emerges briefly with a dish towel over his shoulder.

“I won’t wait up,” he says by way of goodbye, closing the door behind them, making them both laugh.

“He’s hilarious,” Rickon says as they walk down the steps towards his bike.

“He’s drunk is what he is,” she says, and then she tugs on the cuff of his sleeve, making him pause at end of the walkway. “I’m sorry, by the way, for him being so clueless and asking you about, you know, what you did.”

Rickon smiles at her. “It’s okay, really. I guess curiosity must run in the family, huh,” and she lets out a groan of embarrassment, ducking her head. “So uh, you aren’t disgusted with me, now that you know? You don’t think I’m the scum of society?” There is insecurity in his voice, and a little hope, and it makes her smile when she looks back up at him. She shakes her head.

“Not in the slightest,” and then they’re grinning at each other again. It’s all they seem to do these days.

“Oh. Okay, well, good. Good,” he repeats, and in this pause, Shireen gets an idea.

“Hey, I was thinking, there’s this cool bar called The Greenhouse down in Green Hills and I want to take you there. You said you’ve never been in a bar before, so I want to buy you a drink.”

“Oh yeah?” he says. “I won’t say no to that kind of offer,” and they leave the step for the driveway. When they approach his bike, parked on the edge of light coming from the security on the side of the house, she sees a second helmet on the bike, held there with nylon netting. She raises her brows and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Expecting company on this thing, huh?”

“Not expecting,” he says, removing the helmet and handing it to her. Then he smiles. “Hoping.”

He turns the bike so it’s aimed down the driveway and then they both get on, Rickon explaining where she should put her feet and how to lean into the turn, listening as she tells him directions to the bar in Green Hills. She has never ridden a motorcycle before and is scared and excited in equal measure, and is grateful when he twists suddenly, flipping up the visor on his helmet. She does the same, and he smiles warmly to her.

“Don’t be scared, okay? Robb taught me how to ride years ago. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me,” he says. When he kicks the engine over and it roars to life, when they head slowly down the driveway and then are soon flying down Hillsboro road, trees and houses whizzing by, her arms around his middle, she truly does feel safe. And when at some point along the road as they hurtle through the dark suburbs he lays his arm briefly on top of hers, pressing her arms against his ribs, she thinks _You’ve got me, all right,_ and for the rest of the ride Shireen cannot stop grinning.

 

Since she’s already got him on the hook, so to speak, Sansa does not feel obligated to wearing micro minis and sky high heels, so when she knocks on Joff’s apartment door, she’s standing in a black dress that goes to her knees and a pair of turquoise stilettos. She’s nervous, but being in clothes from her own closet is a comfort. There is a click of a lock and then it’s Sandor answering the door, filling the doorway as he always does, and she smiles, flattered to see his eyes widen as he looks her over with his jaw dropped. _He is not a miniskirt guy, then,_ she thinks, oddly smug over the realization, stepping inside the apartment once he snaps out of it and steps back, but he does not take his eyes from her. They roam, from her hair that’s in loose waves now instead of rollers – _God, that was so freaking embarrassing, him seeing me like that_ – down to her feet and back up. She is being appraised, and for some reason she likes the feeling of his eyes on her, likes the idea that such a big, strong man can be so bulldozed by such small things as a black dress and a pair of heels.

Sansa is gazing back at him with a smile as she walks into his apartment, noting to herself how relieved she is to have him here, to not be alone with Joff Lannister after his behavior downtown, when Joff himself walks into the front room, startling her and making her jump with a loud, swaggering “Alayne!”

“That’s Sandor,” he says by way of introduction, waving a hand in Sandor’s general direction. “I bet he gave you a fright, didn’t he?” Joff laughs, and Sansa has a hard time tamping down the urge to slap him.  If she betrays her emotion he does not notice, stands there in the center of his expensively decorated living room as if he is king of the world.

“No, not at all,” she murmurs, deeply hurt and embarrassed for Sandor, wishing he’d just drop it already. She glances at her friend, trying to read his expression, but if he’s angry or irritated she cannot tell; his face is a mask, his gaze is pinned to some spot on the wall across the room. Joff takes her glance for a look of fear, because he puts his arm around her shoulder and leads her away from where Sandor stands by the front door, arms folded across his chest.

“Sweet, soft spoken Alayne,” Joff says, kissing her cheek as a hello. “You don’t have to lie, the brute knows what he looks like, it’s okay if you’re scared. I won’t let him near you,” Joff says with a wink, and she doesn’t want to know what that wink implies. “I’m almost ready, and I’ll try to hurry so you’re not alone with him too long,” he says. “Two minutes, tops, I’ll be right out.”

The moment he disappears into his bedroom Sansa wheels around and walks to Sandor.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot,” she whispers, and he snorts.

“Don’t I know it,” he mutters, shaking his head with his eyes rolled skyward, and his voice sounds bitter. She’s getting to know him, and she can tell, now, that he’s vexed by such talk, that it likely humiliates him, that he hates the words because he believes them, because he says those same things to himself every day of his life. She cannot abide by that, cannot let hateful words that a man like Joff Lannister says fester and grow inside a man like Sandor Clegane, so she reaches up and lays her hand on the twist of scars; the skin is softer than she thought, and she runs her fingers across the mess of them before she realizes what she’s doing. His eyes widen and he jerks his head back, but her hand follows the movement, presses to him to reiterate her intent.

“These are not scary, Sandor, and they don’t bother me,” she whispers. “Your scars are a part of you, a part of your history. They are nowhere _near_ as ugly as Joff is, okay? You’re a more beautiful person than he will _ever_ be. Believe me when I say that, because I mean every single word, okay? Okay?” He stares at her, throat working, but then he nods curtly.

“Okay,” he says after clearing his throat, and she smiles at him, and a corner of his mouth, the unaffected side, twitches slightly, and Sansa decides to take that as acceptance, as the biggest sort of smile he can give her right now.

“Okay,” she echoes, stepping away from him, letting her fingers slip from his scarred cheek, albeit with reluctance. They stand in a silence that is a buzzing mix of awkwardness and physical tension, at least for her, because she wants to touch him again, but Joff emerges soon after, all machismo and arrogance, made all the more pathetic by the knowledge that her scrappy little brother beat the hell out of him. He explains that they’ll be bar hopping, the three of them, but not to worry; if they want some privacy, his man Sandor will give it to them. They’re heading to Joff’s Land Rover and she gives Sandor a glance over her shoulder, meaning to roll her eyes or stick out her tongue at the idea of alone time with Joff, but she refrains when she sees him walking behind them, head bowed, his fingertips ghosting over his scars as if he cannot believe she touched him, and Sansa smiles, heart racing because she told him, finally, how she sees him, hopes he sees her too.

 

 

 

Chapter title taken from Dirty Laundry - Bitter:Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted on Wednesday for ADK_SanSan to get this shit rolling, man. XOXOXO


	12. Just Don't Let Go Just Don't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some long awaited yumminess. A little more pining.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114987567118/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-12-just-dont-let-go)

“Seriously, it’s on me. I want to treat you,” she says. They’re at The Greenhouse and Rickon is trying to buy their drinks, and she is having none of it.

“But you guys had me for dinner, I should pay you back with a drink,” he says stubbornly. His hair is sticking out in all sorts of directions from his motorcycle helmet, and she wants to run her fingers through it, though whether to make it wilder or to tame it, she is not sure.

“Hey, if you want to pay anyone back, then buy Renly a drink, because I didn’t do a lick of work,” she says, and she’s got him there, and he rolls his eyes with a chuckle. “Besides, you turned 21 in – well,” she says, lowering her voice and giving a wary glance to the bartender pouring a pint of beer right beside them. “You know. You just didn’t get to celebrate your birthday. So now we can.” And with that she turns to the bartender and waits to order their drinks.

It’s not overly crowded, since it’s not even 10pm, and because of it he is able to check out the place, which has been converted from an old plant nursery. There is a large rectangular bar in the middle of the space and orange plastic loveseats with pillows and large potted plants all around helping to lend some privacy to the sitting areas. Rickon requests a bourbon and coke and she finally decides on a vodka tonic, and once they’ve got their drinks in hand, she leads him to one of those plastic loveseats that are ensconced within the plants.

“So this is a bar, huh,” Rickon says once they’re seated, looking around, sipping his drink. “And do they all look like plant stores?”

“Of course,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t make fun, now.”

“No, for real, this is cool, thank you. You know, for the drink, and for bringing me here. Or you know, for riding with me here,” he says, and it’s all she needs to remember holding onto him for the twenty minute ride here, and the memory of him between her legs only makes her all too aware that their thighs are touching now, and she cannot help but look down where the denims of their jeans press together. She smiles.

“Happy birthday, Rickon Stark,” she murmurs, lifting her glass as she lifts her eyes, and he’s there with one of those easy smiles of his, gaze waiting for her, and they clink their glasses in a toast.

“Thanks, Shireen Baratheon,” he says, and they close their eyes as they drink, and she’s grateful for the crispness of her cocktail, here beside him where it suddenly feels so warm.

“So, Ric, what’s your favorite color?” She asks, making him laugh, and he tells her it goes back and forth between green and black.

“More black, these days,” he says, taking another swallow of whiskey and coke, and she drinks too, nodding as she glances away to set her drink down on the coffee table. “What about you?”

“Red,” she grins, holding up her free hand, wiggling her painted fingernails in his face, and he hums.

“I should have known. You’re never without that polish, are you?” He asks, and she wonders how he notices such things, being a boy and all. _Boys never notice that kind of stuff, do they?_ But he is not an ordinary boy, and well does she know it. “Although you’re not wearing the lipstick tonight, hmm?” And her mouth parts in an incredulous grin when his eyes drop. “Nope, no lipstick tonight.”

He’s doing that thing he always seems to do where he stretches one of his long arms along the top of the back of whatever seat they’re in, and because this little loveseat is so cozy, so close, his fingers drape over the edge of the seat by her left shoulder. The first time he did it, on the couch in his living room, his fingers nearly touched her; the second time on the porch he moved his hand from the swing to her shoulder.  So it should not surprise her, should not shock her when he takes a deep swallow of his cocktail and sets it on the table beside hers, turns to look at her as his arm bends at the elbow and he runs a fingertip along her hairline.

She watches his eyes follow the motion of his finger as it slides down to her temple before pushing into the fall of her hair, and he lifts a lock of it away from her scalp, watches as it slips off his knuckle to fall back around her face. She is riddled with chills, is captivated just watching how intently he studies her hair, but it is like electricity when he looks back into her eyes, and she does not remember exhaling but there she is, all out of oxygen, gazing back at him because she cannot look anywhere else. There is simply nowhere else to look.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice so low that it’s difficult to hear him over the music and the thrum of conversation all around them, so she leans in. “I’m trying hard, but I really can’t help myself,” he says, and while his left hand again pushes into her hair his right hand lifts to cup her cheek, and if she didn’t know better she’d think he was actually drawn to the scarred side of her face. Once again he’s got her in his hands, but this time she is not so immobilized.

“I can’t help myself either,” she says, lifting a hand within the space his arms provide, and Rickon’s eyes close before she’s even got her fingers in his mussed up hair, and as she pulls her hand out she closes it into a fist, giving his hair a light tug under the pretense of straightening it, but he tips his head into the sensation of it anyways, and before he opens his eyes again Shireen leans in to kiss him.

It’s a second or two of sweet stillness, as if neither of them can quite believe this is happening, but then there is the rush of breath escaping them both as their mouths open, and his tongue is in her mouth, and she licks it by way of invitation, earning a deep hum out of him, another venture and another lick. He tastes like whiskey and coke, faintly of tobacco, and though she’s never smoked in her life, she doesn’t mind it. He tastes how a man should, at least in her mind, and when he deepens the kiss further she’s right there with him, eager and pliant. It is slow, delicious and sweet, like pulled taffy, and she opens the fist in his hair to pull him closer to her and he complies, both hands framing her face now.

Flashes of him crack like lightning in her mind:  the feel of his back against her chest as they rode here on his bike; how intently he watched her over dinner as he opened up about his past; his scraped knuckles and his black eye, the smear of blood on his face after staging that fight; the way his hand cups his face when he takes a drag of his cigarette; she thinks of how they’re kissing in a bar now, something she’s never done, and it thrills her, makes her feel wicked, makes her feel powerful. She doesn’t care if it’s a cliché, doesn’t care that it’s the good girl, bad boy thing because he tastes so  _good_  and he kisses like he’s a dead man walking, so open and yearning and  _hungry_ for her.

And oh, is he hungry. She can feel it in how desperately he is kissing her, and when she remembers he’s been in prison and without a woman it sparks a hot throb between her legs, and she wonders if she should be ashamed of herself for getting turned on by that. Their knees bump together when they get closer, try to face each other more fully, and Shireen tucks her right leg under her and turns to him, and in a heartbeat his right hand leaves her face and grabs her left thigh. It’s as if he is telling her _Yes I’m hungry, and yes it’s for you, and yes, it’s been a_ long _time._ Rickon squeezes and pulls her leg over his, hand sliding down from thigh to shin as he pulls her leg up and across his lap. It’s nothing then, just a small handful of adjustments on her part until she’s in his lap, pushing him back to center, the leg that was once tucked beneath her now pressing against his hip, and his hands sweep up from her hips to her sides before he wraps his arms around her, hands splayed across her ribs and shoulder blade, pinning her to his chest. She moans in his mouth, winds her arms around his neck before his head drops to rest on the loveseat as she straddles him, kissing him until she’s breathless.

“Calm it down or find a room, guys,” a waitress says not unkindly as she sweeps by, and Rickon breaks the kiss with a ragged, gasping laugh, both hands lifting to brush her hair from her face, to pull her close for one more kiss.

“Man, you really know how to celebrate birthdays,” he says, making her huff out a laugh, but when she opens her eyes to look down at him her words are swept away before she even knows what to say. The want in his eyes is a  _thing_ , she can see it, can read it as easily as if it were words to a story, though that particular story would surely make her blush.  _I’m in his arms,_  she thinks with dark, heady joy.  _I’m in Rickon’s arms and I don’t ever want to leave._ He grins as if he can hear her thoughts.

“I think we should listen to the waitress, Shireen,” he says slowly. He watches her, waits for her reaction, lets his hands drift from her face to her shoulders, down her sides until she can’t help but push her chest forward.

“So find us a room, then,” she says.

But still they take the time to make out in the parking lot, because it is new and it is delicious, and it was far too long a stretch from indoors to out, and she doesn’t know whether to groan or laugh when he hoists her up on the pony wall edging the property, so she does a hoarse combination of both, making him swear. Rickon stands between her knees and she lifts her arms to sling them over his shoulders, and his hands are forever moving from her face to her hips, down her thighs to her knees and then back to her ass before they start all over again. He nips at her lip, kisses her throat, makes her moan up to the sky, makes her moan in his mouth when he jerks her, hard and sudden, towards him with such force that her legs wind around him for fear of falling. She feels his erection then, making her lightheaded with want, and she bites down on his neck by way of reply when he does it to her. She gasps when he grabs a fistful of her hair and tugs, tugs until her throat is exposed, where he licks and kisses and sucks and bites.

“Oh fuck _me_ ,” he sighs against her neck as she drags her nails down his back, his shirt rippling beneath the administration, making his back curve like a cat’s, and Shireen laughs, lifting her head to look at him, to cup his face in her hands, to kiss him before murmuring into his mouth.

“I’m trying to.”

“Then you better get on that bike or else I’m going to fuck you right here in this parking lot. You have no idea,” he grits out, shaking his head. “Jesus, Shir, you don’t have any idea what you do to me.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she says, and the dark grin he gives her is enough to make her fuck _him_ in this parking lot.

She barely has her arms around him before he hits the throttle, making her squeal inside her helmet, and the bike sounds as ravenous and dangerous as he likely is in such a state, and she cannot keep from feeling both powerful for invoking it in him and helpless for wanting and needing him, feeling free because she understands now how those two things can be so mingled.  She squeezes her legs around his hips, a promise, a threat, a love letter written in muscle and jeans, and after they take a particularly sharp turn, bodies angling as one to the opposite direction, he fleetingly reaches behind her, presses her lower back so she slides more snugly against him, and it’s then that Shireen closes her eyes for the rest of the ride.

But it’s a short ride to his house, considering how antsy they both are, how he puts his feet down on the asphalt at red lights and reaches behind him with both hands, grabbing her thighs so firmly it makes her ache between her legs, and by the time they make it to his front porch they are both panting, breathing through open, kiss-swollen mouths, and then she’s kicking off her high heels in his living room as he slams the front door, locking it behind them, tearing his own shoes and socks off as she flicks on the light so they can find their way.

“Come here,” she says, flushed from kisses, from the ride here, from the moment she saw the second helmet and knew he meant to seduce her.

“Too late,” he says with a rough voice, and now she’s pinned against the back of the living room sofa, about to topple clean over it before he catches her, an arm braced across her shoulder blades, another at the base of her spine. He mimics the move he did in the parking lot, yanking her against his hips, ravenous now more than creative, and she copies her own move, scooting her ass up on top of the couch so she can wrap her legs around him again, because Shireen has discovered how _very_ much she likes that. Rickon groans, picks her up off the sofa and walks her down the hall until he swears under his breath; the door to the attic is closed, and he has to set her down in order to open it.  

Shireen breaths a laugh, grins when he bends to kiss her throat after wrenching open the door; she grips the waist of his jeans, her nails grazing the soft skin of his lower belly, eliciting a sharp inhale out of him before slipping free from his clutches to turn and run up his stairs. He manages to remove his shirt in his pursuit, because when she turns back to look at him once they’re in his room he is bare chested, coming at her with hungry hands that take up the sweater she’s wearing, and his palms skim her sides as he drags it up and over her head.

He walks her backwards to his bed, but before she feels the mattress against her legs he spins them both as one, dropping himself to the bed so that he sits in front of her, and there is reverence in his expression as he unhooks her bra, as he slowly, oh so slowly draws the straps down her arms, letting it fall to the floor, and his jaw drops with a sigh when he sees her fully. She watches all this, this adoration that, as far as she can tell, goes beyond the first lay after a dry spell. She can’t guarantee it, but she’d put money on him looking at her like this because it’s _her_. He kisses her between her breasts and Shireen pushes her fingers into his hair, holds him to her as he takes first one breast and then the other into his mouth, tongue hot against her skin as it drags, as it licks, as it tastes, and then it’s as if something snaps in him.

Before she knows it she’s flipped on her back and is beneath him suddenly, her mouth beneath his as he kisses her, and when his hand drops to undo her jeans both of hers move to his belt buckle. Soon enough they are naked, or maybe not soon enough, she burns that brightly for him, but then he’s between her thighs and pushing into her, both of them gasping, both of them arching their backs, pressing their hips to each other. She wants to devour him, wants him to never move, never ever leave this bed or take his weight off of her again, and then his hips begin to move and she cannot remember her own name, but she knows his, and she says it with a sigh, says it with  _please_ and  _yes_  and  _oh God_  until with a shudder and a groan he comes.

They lay in a heap, a tangle of legs after she unwraps hers from around his waist, Rickon still a delicious pressure of weight above her and between her thighs, and she runs her fingers down his back, raising gooseflesh in their wake as he catches his breath, forehead resting lightly on hers. It was quick but it was powerful, and with such an agonizing buildup from the bar to the bed it’s no wonder, and she is musing on this when Rickon lifts his head to kiss her sweaty collarbone, the darting of a tongue before the press of lips, and she closes her eyes when he exhales a sigh against her skin.

“Okay, so that was because it’s been over a year and a half,” he says, and she opens her mouth to assure him it’s fine, that it was wonderful, because it _is_ fine, and it  _was_  wonderful, but then he kisses her, all of the rush and fire gone, leaving behind a languid richness, thick like honey, luxurious like a deep stretch after a long nap.  He holds himself up on his left elbow, his right hand sliding down to her thigh, gripping the back of it, drawing it up until it’s over his hip once more, and the slow draw of it makes her whimper. “And now  _this_  is because it’s been over a year and a half,” and in mere moments he has her gasping again, nails raking down his back, breath hitching with each movement of his hips, each stroke of his hand, each press of his mouth, and in mere moments he has her undone, though he does not stop there because he is not through with her yet, and if she sleeps at all tonight, it will be a miracle.

 

Sansa is eating noodles from a carton of Chinese takeout, sitting on the steps in her black dress and her bare feet, a blanket over her shoulders, and she looks tired and tiny, lost in thought, but when his truck pulls up, she lifts her head and smiles, a beam he can see from the street, a beam that lights him up from the inside out, even in the close quarters of his dark heart. He’s beyond exhausted as he hauls himself out of his truck, having done physical labor since six in the morning, and it is now past midnight.  _I am too old for this,_  he thinks, rubbing the kink out of the back of his neck as he walks up to where she sits.

“Hey, you,” she says amiably, scooting to the side as if she takes up the entire stair. He sits in wordless acceptance of her equally silent invitation, careful not to pin her blanket beneath him, and then in classic thoughtful Sansa fashion she produces from her lap an extra fork. “Hungry?”

“Starved,” he admits, having only gotten a burger on his way home earlier that night. She clucks like a mother hen in mild admonishment and passes over the carton. He forks a mound of noodles in his mouth, grunting and nodding his approval, making her laugh. “Slow down there, cowboy, there’s more inside.”

“Then why are you out here? I can tell you’re cold,” he says after chewing and swallowing his mouthful, and here she giggles like a girl, sticking her fork into the carton he still holds, twirling the noodles around it before lifting it halfway to her mouth. She leans against him the rest of the way, careful to keep her dress clean. It’s not sensual by any means, eating noodles, but still he watches her, unable to turn away.

“It’s um, it’s a little rowdy in there right now,” she says before she eats her forkful, and Sandor raises his eyebrows.

“Oh?” He watches her fork as she puts it in her mouth, watches the bob of her jaw muscles as she chews, and it’s only when she glances to him with a close-mouthed, full-cheeked grin that he realizes he’s staring. He could stare all day.  _I probably do and don’t even realize it._

“Yeah, um, there are shoes and socks scattered like knocked over bowling pins in the front room, and I found Rickon’s shirt on the floor outside his bedroom stairway. I  _told_  you it was a date,” she says triumphantly.

Sandor snorts, shakes his head with a low chuckle. He’s jealous, infinitely so, thinking it’s likely been far longer for him than a young good looking kid like Rickon, and while _he’s_ rolling in the hay with a willing ( _very_  willing) lass, he’s sitting here next to a goddess eating Chinese food, fighting the simultaneous urges to throw her over his shoulder and claim her as his, and simply lie back and fall asleep with her in his arms.  _You’re an old man, Sandor Clegane._

Clouds have been rolling below the stars all night and now they are fat and swollen, and a far off rumble of thunder suggests that rain is likely on its way. “We should go inside,” he suggests, glancing up as he shovels another forkful of noodles in his mouth.

“I don’t know, Sandor, I barely went in to put the other food in the kitchen and I was um, well. It was scandalizing,” she says with a laugh, biting her lip as she looks into the carton, twirling another forkful and eating it. “And it kind of made me feel lonely,” she mumbles with her mouth half full. He laughs despite himself.

“ _You_ , lonely? Sansa, you could go out there and get any man you wanted,” he says, because he is so tired and doesn’t have the strength to hide, doesn’t have the sharpness of mind to bite his tongue. It is Sansa’s turn to snort, a dainty little thing that makes him want to smile.

“Well, maybe I don’t want just  _any_ one,” she mutters, staring down at the little walkway cutting through the yard, sighing. Raindrops darken it, painting it with polka dots before it begins to rain in earnest, and the beige turns to black in its entirety as the clouds unload themselves.

“Aye,” he sighs, standing up, hearing the pops in his knees and feeling the long day in the muscles along his spine. He holds out his hand to help her, and she takes it with a small smile. He thinks of that same hand on his scars, wonders at how it did not repel him like it has when others have tried it; likely because she never flinched, only looked him in the eyes, held his ruined face in her hand and called him beautiful. “I know the feeling.”

“I don’t even know if it’s safe in there, yet,” she says when he’s got his hand on the knob of the wooden door.

“Delicate as a nun, eh?” He grins at the scowl she gives him. “It can’t be  _that_ bad,” he says, pushing open the door, though he is half afraid to walk into a room shaking with the sounds of fucking or love-making or whatever they’re doing up there, because that would surely make a mad dash to his bedroom necessary, but they are in luck, so far. He turns to Sansa who stands behind him as if he could buffer the noises, as if he could stop them reaching her ears.

“I’m not  _delicate,_ ” she says hotly. “And I am most certainly _not_ a nun. It’s just that it’s my brother, and that’s beyond disgusting. Like, it’s my  _little_  brother, Sandor,” she emphasizes to try and prove her point, and he lifts his eyebrows, looking to the ceiling. A well timed moan, long and loud considering how tucked away they are up there, makes its way to their ears.

“I don’t think he’s so little  _anymore_ , lass,” and he laughs when she hits his arm, scoffing at his implication. “Look, I’ll turn on the television and we’ll simultaneously drown them out and let them know they’re no longer alone.”

He does so as she fetches the rest of the takeout, and they sit once more in the half-dark little room, Sansa curled up in the center of the sofa as he sprawls out, back in the corner of the cushion and arm rest. He finds a movie on Netflix they both express mild interest in seeing, and settle in as they eat, but then something catches his eye on the bookcase near the television, and he gestures to it with his fork after getting over his initial shock.

“Are those seashells?” He asks after hastily swallowing his food, and he winces as the too-big bite goes down his gullet. He glances to her, sees her smiling softly, sadly maybe, but what’s new in this house? He looks back to the mason jar of seashells sitting in a place of honor next to a family photo.

“Yeah, I um, I used to collect them when I lived in San Diego,” she says around a small bite of chicken. “Every time I’d go to the beach I’d take some of the prettier ones home. I was going to throw them away but I couldn’t in the end. Are you okay?” She asks him because he stands up abruptly, unable to stay away, because it is like being haunted. He can’t help but pick up the jar, sealed with its canning lid, and heft it in his hand, turn it this way and that, and the sounds of chinkling shells brings him back.

“I uh, hmm. Jesus, Sansa. I _had_ one of these,” he says, looking back at her over his shoulder. “Just like it.” She tilts her head, looking confused but curious, and he has _never_ shared this with anyone, but here he goes, walking back to the sofa to sit back down beside her, the jar still in his hands. “I had one of these when I was a boy. After the- you know, after the fire, I stayed with my grandparents. It’s why I came over here, actually, from Glasgow,” he says, and she’s got her legs folded under her as she twists on the sofa to watch him instead of the movie.

He’s embarrassed to have her attention so fully, but he just stares at the jar in his hands, wonders if these shells were the same he had. “They’d take me to the beach up in Maine, where they lived, and would let me collect whatever shells I wanted. My grandmother only had these jars lying around,” he says. Then he grins suddenly, glancing to her. “Didn’t believe in Tupperware, that woman,” and Sansa laughs, the sound of it curling like a sleeping cat around him. They sit in silence for a few moments after that, Sansa watching him stare at and turn the jar in both of his hands.

“What happened to it? Do you still have it?”

“No,” he murmurs with a shake of his head, and he’s transported to the day that fat little prick Boros stole it. “They died and I went into foster care,” he says, and it’s a mumble because it’s painful to say out loud, even more than thirty years later, the loss of his last family members. “I brought it with me, but this kid stole it. Chucked it into the street. That was the end of that.”

“You keep it,” she says suddenly, and he looks sharply to her, taken aback. No one has ever given him a gift, save for Sansa. First her father’s desk, though that is more of a borrowing sort of situation, but _this_ , this plain old jar of shells, _this_ is a gift, this is something meant to travel with him the rest of his days. “I’m serious, don’t give me that look. I want you to have it. Please, Sandor. If someone stole them then let someone give them back. It would- I think I’d like them even better knowing you had them. I can always go back to California if I wanted, but you can never go back, you know, go back _there_.”

“Sansa, no, I couldn’t,” he starts, but she is shaking her head, eyebrows raised and eyes closed in the imperious manner of a queen.

“I insist. Unless you don’t want them. I guess _I_ could throw them out since they’re just sitting there,” and she laughs when he gives her a look of inflated horror, holding the jar to his chest as if it held gold instead of seashells.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, if not a little gruffly. “I uh. Yeah. I’ll be right back,” he says, and he cannot take his eyes off the jar, even in the dark hallway down to his room, even past the attic door where all manner of noises drift down.

So how was Joff after I went home?” She asks once he comes back from placing the shells on the desk of her father’s she lent to him; she is referencing how after a few hours of bar hopping and deftly slipping out of the cornering affections he’d try on her, she feigned not feeling so well to avoid his inevitable asking her inside his apartment. She’d left him at 11:30, but Sandor had to linger under the guise of financially fueled concern for Joff’s wellbeing.

“Oh, Christ,” he says with a roll of his eyes and a groan as he lowers back down to the couch. There were complaints of frigid women and ice queens, there was (horrifying) discussion over going back out because it was still so early, but then his mother texted him, reminding him of a brunch he must attend the following morning, and so Sandor had been released. “He ah, he wanted to go back out again, but I was saved by the bell. The text, really,” he says, telling her that part but leaving out the nasty commentary about her clamped-tight knees.

“I got him to ask me out again, though. It was while we were at that one bar downtown. I told him how much I like watching movies on the sofa so we’re going to do that next weekend,” she says, and he thinks she blushes, maybe, and he is suddenly aware, now, that they are doing what she likes right this minute, and it makes him happy in the way that it also makes him sad.

“Just be careful, all right? He’s a right pig, that one,” he says, and when he hazards a glance in her direction she is smiling at him. _Always smiling,_ he thinks, frowning at her. _Always smiling at_ me, _and that’s never happened, not since Gregor did this to me._ “What?”

“You’re just, you know, you’re always looking out for me. It’s nice. I like that,” she says, and he doesn’t know what to say, because it’s much more than that, but he supposes that’s all she sees. _Why do you call yourself a dog? It’s degrading,_ she’s said to him before, and he wants to say that it’s all anyone will let him _be_ , but they’re having a nice moment, and they’ve already fought once before, and tonight he’s just too fucking tired.

“Were you okay, tonight? With him, I mean,” Sandor says, lowering his eyes from her to study with feigned interest the sesame chicken inside the carton in his hands. “He was uh, you know, he was aggressive.” It was a misery, standing in the back of those clubs, or the front of the bars next to the bouncers, watching Joff rest a hand on her thigh, trying to slide the hem of her dress up her leg, how he’d order her doubles instead of singles to try and get her drunk past the level of consent. But then Sandor grinned to see how quick she was when Joff would go to the bathroom or turn his back to watch another woman walk past, how she’d lean over the bar, long back stretched straight to whisper to the bartender, and he’d switch her drinks for a club soda and once a Shirley Temple after he’d ordered her jack and coke, and she’d given Sandor a grin over her shoulder, knowing just where he was, as she popped the maraschino cherry in her mouth to hide the only evidence of her legerdemain.

“It was okay. I’ve gone on plenty of dates with sleaze balls, you know? And my God, one lawyer I worked for in San Diego was an absolute creep. He tried to ask me out, you know,” she says inclining her head to him as she shares this gossip. “And I was flattered for about thirty seconds before I found out the jerk was married.” She shakes her head, poking around the takeout when he hands it back to her. “Anyways, tonight wasn’t ideal by any means, as far as dates go,” she says, and there’s another shy little look she flicks up to him. “But I knew you were there, and that’s what made it okay.”

Sandor huffs a laugh, rubbing a hand across his tired eyes. “Poor thing, if it’s a dog like me who makes your date passable,” but she looks at him sternly, and he lifts his hand in surrender. “All right, all right, I’ll stop it.”

They pass the food back and forth until it’s finished, and with his stomach full and Sansa insisting he take some of the blanket – “I know how to look out for you too, you know, just in a different sort of way” – he is dozing, hardly able to keep his eyes open, and as they watch some action movie with loud enough explosions to drown out the rutting noises upstairs, he closes his eyes and they simply will not open again.  

He dreams of the seashore, of the soft weight of a woman against his body and how it feels to be  _home_  with someone for the first time in his life. He dreams of rain and woolen blankets, of blue-light lightning flickers, but mostly he just dreams of warmth.

When he wakes the television is stuck on the gray intro screen for the movie, asking if he’d like to re-watch it, and he is about to find the remote to turn the damn thing off so he can go back to sleep when she stirs against him, and Sandor realizes she’s fallen asleep on him again, slumped against his body, an arm slung across his abs in the innocent throes of sleep. Her head is resting on his chest and somehow in sleep they must have adjusted together so that his arm is not pinned to his side by her weight but has rather found its way over her shoulders, and as much as she holds on to him, he holds on to her.

Sandor is now very much awake, heart thudding so hard in his chest he is afraid it will wake her, her ear resting right above it as it is, and while he feels rooted to the spot he knows he must move them. She sighs then, the sound of a ghost on some cold and moon-dark cliff, whimpers  _No, Robb,_  and before he can help himself he brushes his hand down the back of her head. “Shhh now, it’s okay. It’s okay,” he rumbles, his voice rough and cracked from sleep and the thirst that comes from eating such salty food. He watches in the muted, still light from the television screen as she frowns slightly, even in her sleep, but when he shushes her again, sweeps his hand down her hair again, the crease between her brows disappears, and he is prouder of himself than he has any right to be.

It’s harder tonight, easing out from under her and lifting her, sore as he is from hard work, tired as he is from lack of sleep, but he manages it, and once more her head lolls forward, tucking beneath his chin as she winds her arms around his neck in her slumber.  _Oh God,_  he thinks, looking down to see that her dress has slid down her thighs, and he feels like his own body is a traitor against him as he struggles under the weight of fatigue and sleeping women, and now, on top of it all, his very eager physical reaction to having her in his arms once more.

He presses a knee to the mattress for balance before lowering her, as gently as he can in his weakened state –  _weak on so many bloody levels –_ and she sighs again, this time with a smile and a deep, throaty hum. He assumes she’s dreaming of mysterious men or past boyfriends, and fleetingly he panics that it’s Joff she dreams of, but he is mistaken, and freezes with her throw blanket in his hands. It’s halfway drawn up over her when she mumbles in her sleep.

“You smell good, Sandor,” she says, burrowing down, one long leg drawn up to her chest. “Like the woods,” she sighs, and he stares down at her in disbelief before remembering himself and letting the comforter drop, covering up her dancer’s body though it pains him to see it disappear. He is grateful tomorrow is Sunday and that he does not work, because it takes him at least another hour to fall into fitful sleep, and if his dreams were distracting when he slept on the sofa, then these are practically shattering.

 

“I’ve wanted to do that to you, all of it, every last bit of it, ever since I laid eyes on you,” Rickon says dreamily as the rain patters against the window, a thousand soft little drums that beat in time to how his body throbs and aches after two orgasms and the hard work it took to get her off for her third time. He’s been out of practice, but what he lacks in recent experience he assumes he makes up for in enthusiasm, and he’s fairly certain he’s made her happy, given her as much pleasure as he’s received, because she cannot stop kissing him, cannot keep her hands from his hair or from roaming his chest, narrow as it may be, much to his infinite joy.

“Oh yeah? I seem to remember we had an awkward little moment the first time we met,” she says, voice as husky in his ear as it was the first time he heard it over the phone just before midnight. It’s four am, now, but he is too buzzed off of her to sleep, and while she’s been dozing off here and there, it’s never long before he wakes her up, if not to slip inside her than at least to kiss her, to touch her, to whisper her name and tell her how she keeps him up at night, how good it feels to have those red fingernails digging into him at last. He’s greedy and he doesn’t care. She can sleep tomorrow; he swears he’ll let her sleep tomorrow. He  _thinks_  he’ll let her sleep tomorrow.

Rickon shakes his head. “Not the first time we met, the first moment I _saw_ you. You had your feet up on the table with that cherry red polish, and your legs were golden from the sun. It was summer and it was warm and it was happy, and it was _sexy_ ,” he says, closing his eyes at the memory, smiling to remember her angry glare, too. “I wanted those legs wrapped around me right in that one perfect moment.” He is on his back, staring at the pitched ceiling in the soft glow provided by the lamp across the room (“I am not having sex in the dark. After a year and a half, I want to see  _everything”_ )and she is nearly on her stomach, head on his shoulder. He’s got one arm around her and the other draped over his body so he can hold her to him. There is a tantalizing pair of divots on her lower back that he cannot stop touching, no matter how hard he tries.

“And now you’ve gotten your wish,” she murmurs against his throat, and his eyes roll back in his head when she kisses him there, teeth and tongue and lips and the gust of her breath, that throaty voice that paints his skin, stealing through the sweat that’s still drying. Shireen is as insatiable as he is, and he wonders if their endless, yearning appetites will set him free or make him go blind. Even if it’s something that can kill him, he isn’t sure he’s strong enough to turn away.

“Yes, I have,” he says, turning on his side to face her, propping his elbow against the mattress, resting his head in his hand, and she mirrors the position, though he cannot stop himself from pulling her leg up over his hips, if only to provide room for his own leg to slide between hers. It’s not good enough, just lying side by side; Rickon craves contact, her touch, her heat, _and her love,_ he thinks. “I wanted more than just that though,” he says, toying with a long tangle of her hair. “I, hmm,” he says, trying to find the words, gazing down at the hair between his fingers.

“What did you want, honey?” He laughs quietly, loves how she teases him, finally looks up to her eyes.

“I wanted _you_ , all of it. I liked you from the get go. You with your sassy backtalk and all that snappy fire,” he says, and she rolls her eyes with a smile. “But knowing you comes with a price, you know? It’s weird sometimes, to think I know you solely because they’re gone, that I can’t introduce you to my parents because they’re dead.” It has been on his mind, how this is the second girl he’s ever been with in his life and the only one he’d ever want to bring home to his parents, and how that will never happen. He’s thought on it since she slept over on the living room sofa, wondered at the cruel twisty way fate is. He’s thought on it and he’s come to his own conclusions.

“I know,” she sighs, staring over his shoulder at the wall behind him, chewing her lower lip, and despite the heaviness of the conversation, he is jealous of those teeth of hers, wants to be the one nipping her there. “I thought about it too, tonight actually, how something so horrible could bring something so wonderful to me. You,” she says, looking back to him, and it makes him smile, makes him kiss her, hold the back of her head to keep her closecloseclose.

“I want my parents back,” he sighs, forehead against hers, mouth inches from hers. “I wish they weren’t gone, I wish Robb was here. I wish I could turn back the clock and stop it all from happening. I’ll never  _not_  want that.” He’s talking barely above a whisper, because it’s a hard topic, because he’s confused and he’s sad and he’s already so wound up in her. Rickon runs his thumb along her scars, watches as she closes her eyes for the first time since he’s ever touched her there, soothed instead of agitated by the caress. “But I want _you_ , and eventually, regardless of them being gone, I would have met  _some_ one. You know? I’m just so glad that it’s you, Shir. I’m so fucking glad it’s you in my life. I’m not going to think on it anymore, either. It’s uh, you know, it’s done, you’re here now, and I’m just happy about that.” He feels _weird,_ full of hurt and pain and maybe, maybe love, he thinks, he wonders, and it’s such a strange combination, something he’s never known, this heart pounding, mind reeling thing, and he’s about to get lost in it when she lifts her hand and runs her fingertips down his face, temple to jaw, before sliding them beneath his ear and into his hair. It’s soft and it’s sweet and it calls him from the lost place he’s lived his whole life, calls him somewhere warmer, somewhere kinder.

“Well, you’ve got me, Rickon,” she says to him when they finally pull away to regard each other, and he smiles, drops his eyes to her mouth that parts for him, that’s waiting for yet another kiss when he leans in to give one, and he kisses her until the rain stops, kisses her until he falls asleep in her arms holding him close, keeping him warm, and he knows she’s got him, too.

 

 

Chapter title comes from Just Don't Let Go Just Don't - Hellogoodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CANNOT HELP MYSELF. There's an intense chapter coming up and I want to leave y'all with it tomorrow, which means I need to post this today. I hope posting so rapid-fire won't swallow up the loveliness of Rickon and Shireen finally getting together, because I adore them and this chapter, and I also LOVE the scene of Sandor and Sansa on the porch and sofa.
> 
> I blame you, ADK_SanSan. Apparently I will do anything to make you happy lol.


	13. Safe From Harm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD I forgot to put up a warning about violence against women for this chapter. I will put *** where it starts, and where it ends. I AM SO SORRY YOU GUYS. I kept reminding myself to do that for this chapter, and then I go and forget like a dumbass. FORGIVE ME.
> 
> Joff's apartment  
> [](http://imgur.com/8W7uRpS)[](http://imgur.com/GdKbXDH)[](http://imgur.com/iqnluHW)
> 
>  
> 
> [PIcset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/114995569583/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-13-safe-from-harm)

She knows Joff likes his women perky and attentive, but she feels more sullen and withdrawn today, for a myriad of reasons. It’s Halloween on a Friday night, for one, a holiday she’s always enjoyed though never quite so much as her sister, and she has to spend it holed up in Joff’s apartment watching horror movies and eating pizza, trying to divine secrets from him.  Those other reasons she is more reluctant to mull over, because it means admitting that she is jealous of her little brother and that she is pining for a man who doesn’t seem interested, no matter how many overtures she makes.

The past week has been a parade of whispers and laughter, of kisses on the sofa, kisses in the kitchen, kisses on the porch swing even when it’s gray and drizzly outside, and she has even heard Sandor bark _You’ve got a goddamn bedroom so use it._ Even when they’re working there is a feeling of love in the air; Shireen helped him move the three beds out of his attic, even helped him move the new queen up there, and all the while she laughed at his jokes, good naturedly swatted his hands whenever he tried to cop a feel, let the conversation fall to pieces as they gazed in silence at each other.  It makes her happy, to see her brother so cared for, to see him smile so easily after everything that has happened to him and to them, but there is no love for her like that, and that is where the jealousy comes from, that is why it pokes its head up amidst the tall, secretive grasses of her heart to stare in mute irritation at them.

She’s pulled back from Sandor because it has been two times now she has woken up without him, and while the first time was absolutely an accident, falling asleep on the sofa, the second time was a little less innocent; Sansa bites her lip as she applies cat eyes of liquid liner to one lid and then the other. She supposes she took advantage of his exhaustion, curling up on him as careful as a mouse, but he was so warm, and she missed his smell, and when he draped his arm over her shoulders, muttering incoherently in his sleep, she felt her heart soar, and though it was a thrill lying there with him under the blanket, soon she too had drifted off, safe and sound with him, the unlikeliest source of comfort but the most ready of givers. So she had thought.

 _He must feel obligated since he’s living here,_ she thinks sadly, feeling foolish for thinking he likes her just because she likes him, and it makes her feel stupid and perhaps even a bit stuck up. Sansa knows from honest self-assessment that she is good looking, knows from empirical evidence that Sandor finds her attractive; she has caught him staring at her plenty. But now she wonders if she has relied too heavily on that, has not given him reason to see past her face and into her heart, where more than one beat has thudded out because of him.   _All I’ve ever done is cry and complain, and a couple of times I even yelled at him,_ she thinks, tossing her liner back into her makeup drawer before sighing and sliding it shut.

She refuses to get dressed up for a date in front of the television, ignores the fact that it was her idea in the first place, and wears jeans and a cream tank top, throws on a blue fitted jacket before slipping on some flats and shutting the light off in her room. A hopeful glance into Sandor’s room from the hallway is met with a disappointingly empty space, and her eyes fall on the jar of seashells on his desk, and Sansa sighs again with a heavy heart.

“Holy crap,” she says, walking by the TV room just in time to see a zombie bite into the shoulder of a woman. Rickon and Shireen are stretched out on the sofa as two spoons fit together in a drawer, making her roll her eyes, making her feel like a petulant child.

“We decided to marathon The Walking Dead in honor of today’s illustrious holiday,” her brother says, glancing up at her, and then his expression changes. “Oh shit, you’re going to see Joff tonight. I forgot,” he adds a little sheepishly, and he gives Shireen a gentle nudge to her hip with his hand, to her shoulder with his chin, and Sansa grits her teeth. They extricate themselves from one another and Rickon leaps to his feet, half bounding towards her. “You’re going to be careful, right?” He frowns, chews his cheek as he regards her.

“Yeah, I am. Don’t wait up or anything but keep your phone on, will you? I don’t care how um, busy you get,” she says, arching her brows, and behind her Shireen drops her head in embarrassment; there has been no discussion, per say, of that first night they got together, but plenty of blushing from the both of them when they emerged sometime the following afternoon, Shireen’s hair a rat’s nest and Rickon practically limping from his efforts.

“Of course I will. There’s not a lot of things about this show that can turn a person on, I don’t care how much you like zombies,” he grins. “Although it’s a pretty tight fit on that couch,” and she rolls her eyes, ruffles his hair, gives his head a light shove before she turns to go.

“I’m happy for you, bub, but God, is young love annoying. Hey, one more thing, did um, is Sandor working this late?” It’s six o’clock and already dark, and she knows she needs to give it up but she can’t keep herself from asking. _I’m only curious_ , she tells herself firmly, _I’m just making sure he got home safe_.

Rickon shrugs. “He was watching with us for a while and then he said he was going out for a bite to eat and a drink. Did you two get in another fight? It’s been awful uh, what’s the word,” he says, snapping his fingers as he racks his brain. Her heart sinks to know Sandor’s not here or on his way home, but is out, as far from her as he can be.

“Stilted,” Shireen offers from the sofa, looking apologetically to Sansa from behind Rickon. She tilts her head and shrugs as if to say _Sorry but it’s true._ Sansa waves her off with a tight smile.

“Yeah, stilted,” Rickon says.

“No, we haven’t. We’re just both tired of The Makeout Show,” Sansa says trying for lighthearted, but Shireen looks embarrassed again and even Rickon looks a little crestfallen, and she mentally kicks herself during the entire drive to Joff’s house. _Grow up, get over it, you have a million other things going on in your life right now,_ she thinks, and her subsequent chagrin is enough to get her to focus her thoughts on why she’s even heading to this guy’s place. She decides to ask him about his parents, since he’s never mentioned the death of his father, hopes he gives something away other than absolute nonchalance over the death. He parties like he doesn’t have a care in the world, but then, maybe he doesn’t, dead father or no. Unbidden, a memory of her father picking her up from middle school fills her, head to toe, heart to brain; how he leaned over to unlock the passenger side of his Dodge Infinity, how he told that mom was picking up everyone else and he was going to take her out for a special father-daughter date.

It’s enough to make her want to cry, but it’s also enough to steel her nerves, to clench her jaw and stride with purpose down the sidewalk after parking, up the stairs, to knock with authority on Joff’s door. Come hell or high water, she’ll figure something out.

“Hey,” he drawls when he opens the door, stepping in close to put his arm around her hips. He looks perfectly mussed in a v neck sweater with its sleeves pushed up, a tumble-tousle to his ordinarily spiked blonde hair, and he holds a glass of red wine in his hand. Joff leans in to kiss her but she deftly turns, receiving his kiss on her cheek just as she presses a light one of her own to his smooth shaven jaw, and he _tsks_ when he draws back, shaking his head, a flirtatious smolder in his eyes.

“A glass of wine will help this chill between us,” he grins, stepping back from the door to let her in, and she can see there’s a glass of wine waiting for her on the kitchen counter, just visible from where she stands in the short little hall. Not even a year ago, she’d be giggling to Jeyne about this guy, lapping it up like ice cream. Now it disgusts her because she recognizes it for what it is, sees it for the cheap seduction it is. He has played it to a T, with his bed-rumpled hair suggesting another roll in the hay, with the wine at the ready to flush her cheeks and make her take off her jacket; he’s clearly already had a glass or two himself, smooth-rolling as he is when he ambles into the small, brilliant white kitchen, just off the hall that overlooks the sitting room. She can see into the bedroom, sees unlit candles at the ready on the nightstands flanking his bed. It makes her skin crawl.

“Here, gorgeous, have a glass. Are you hungry yet? The pizza already came, ‘cause I didn’t want anyone to interrupt us, but I’ve got it in the oven. I even texted my mom to ask the right setting,” he grins. Yes, he’s handsome, but snakes are beautiful too. There’s even a sort of sinister beauty to the most poisonous of spiders, she supposes, but she smiles and thanks him, sits on the barstool on the other side of his kitchen counter.

“I’m fine for now,” she says lightly, gazing around. “I never said before, but I love your apartment. Really well decorated,” she smiles, and it’s not quite a lie, though it’s a little opulent for her tastes, especially for how she imagines a man’s apartment to be. His place is in a college neighborhood and yet he has an oriental rug beneath his coffee table, has painted a wall of his living area a crimson red that makes her think of brothels, and he even has a tapestry above his bed that she can see from here, of some epic medieval battle. He puffs with pride, though his next statement should detract from it.

“Yeah, my mom’s pretty good with this sort of thing,” he says, and Sansa’s heart pounds, because here is an in, here is a chance to gauge his reaction, to see if he is in on his father’s death or if his innocence might reveal something.

“Does your dad like decorating, or is more your mom’s thing?” Sansa sips her wine to cover up her face, worried it betrays her, but then her hands are trembling, and she thinks strong thoughts, ivory and porcelain and steel, and it reminds her of storm gray eyes, warm despite the iron behind them.

Joff sighs, not with sorrow or pain but with something else, and she’s trying to pinpoint it when he continues. “My dad wasn’t into it, no. He died a while back,” he says, waving it off as if it is a bad smell he wants gone from his presence.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she says, but he shakes his head, and now she realizes he is agitated, that her questions make him nervous, and there is only one reason to be nervous when discussing Robert Baratheon’s untimely death. _Oh, Joff. Killing a husband is one thing, but killing a father?_

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. We weren’t close and it was ages ago.” The lie interests Sansa, makes her wonder if that’s what he tells himself to help him sleep at night. “Let’s not talk about that kind of stuff,” he says, coming around the counter towards her, and before she can move away he grasps the ponytail holder keeping her hair up and draws it out of her hair. She wears it up for a reason, to refrain from looking inviting, but he’s gone and ruined it. “There, that’s better. Not so severe,” he says, and _oh_ , it’s a misery, sitting there letting him drag his fingers through it. But she hasn’t found anything out, only that he’s likely involved in Robert Baratheon’s murder. She wants to know about _her_ family.

His phone _dings_ and he interrupts his advances to pull it from his pocket and read his text, and he chortles at whatever it says, fingers and thumbs rapid-firing a reply.

“What’s so funny?” She asks, attempting coquettishness, attempting to appear interested, having a feeling it will only invite her further into the weakness of his character.

“Oh nothing. Last week this friend of mine saw my ugly cousin making out with some dude at a bar, and we were just joking about it. Guess she’s a slut now, too. Says she was all over this guy. That dude must have been hammered, her face is that busted,” he chuckles, slipping his phone back in his pocket with an amused sigh before taking a swallow of wine.

Her blood runs cold, first, and then boiling hot in rage over the way he speaks about her friend, and the hand in her lap clenches into a fist. Sansa’s expression must reveal something because he frowns. “Oh, what now, don’t get all feminazi on me for saying some girl is ugly. It’s not like anyone could say that about you, Alayne.” He runs his fingers down the length of her hair again, and she shudders, unable to help herself, but she covers it up as a shiver, smiling shakily.

“That tickles,” she says, sipping her wine for a little liquid courage, turning away from him slightly, but then he draws her hair away from her neck and presses a wet kiss to her skin there, and she jumps, spilling wine on the counter.

“Mm, you’re ticklish everywhere I see. It’s going to be fun, finding out the other spots,” he murmurs against her skin, and she jerks her head away when he darts his tongue out. Sansa scrambles off the stool so that it stands between them, and instead of looking shamed, he is amused, and she realizes if she fights back, it will likely only amuse him more, arouse him more. Her blood runs cold again.

“Why don’t you show me around your place? There’s a ton of cool stuff here. Tell me about the rug,” she says, taking her wine glass as she heads to the sitting area. It’s a beautiful rug, richly hued though it is clearly ages old. He sighs from behind her and comes to stand beside her.

“My grandfather gave it to me after my grandmother died. I guess he bought it for her as an anniversary gift or something, but looking at it brought up too many memories? I don’t know. It’s just a rug, right? I mean, it’s nice, yeah, but still. You walk on it,” Joff shrugs, drinking his wine, and Sansa can tell he’s already refilled his glass.

“That’s sweet, though. He sounds like a romantic guy,” she smiles, and he laughs outright.

“That guy? Not a chance. He loved her, I guess, but no, Tywin is not a romantic guy. He’s a hardass,” Joff says, and she suppresses a cringe to hear the name of one Lannister on the lips of another. She presses on, asking about the antique candlesticks, the small oil paintings hanging on either side of his flat screen, and then they are finished with this room. She’s learned about Tywin’s devotion to his wife, but little else of import and Joff’s apartment is small; there’s not much else about which she can ask, until they pass his bedroom doorway and she sees the tapestry again.

“Now _that_ looks interesting,” she says, and it’s the truth; the border is done in reds and yellows, and there are still glints of gold thread there though it looks ancient. It’s roughly two feet by four, and hangs from a thick silk cord.

“Ah, perfect, I love showing _this_ room off,” he grins to her as he brushes past her. “That thing is my mother’s _favorite_ , and I’m surprised she let me have it, but then again, I can be very persuasive,” he says with a puffed up laugh, taking another swallow of wine before setting his glass on the nightstand, fixing his burning gaze on her.

“It must be a few hundred years old,” Sansa says in an attempt to get him back on track, and it works, for now. Joff turns away from her to look at the tapestry.

“It is, yeah. It’s called the Battle of Castamere, some huge battle like in the 1500s. My family was on the winning side, and we completely annihilated the other side. My mom _loves_ it, says it represents how powerful the Lannisters are. She’s named pets Castamere, makes it her password for like _everything._ She even named the biggest fish in her pond Castamere. It’s ridiculous, but then again, it _was_ a pretty badass battle. One of the bloodiest, we’re told,” he says, grinning over his shoulder at her, and an alarm is going off at something he said just then, something important, but then she looks into his eyes. Talk of war must have inspired him, because he lowers his gaze down the length of her body before bringing it to her mostly-full glass.

“I told you to drink your wine,” he says, voice low, draining the rest of his glass before setting it back down and walking towards her. Sansa takes an instinctive step backwards, and flinches when her spine hits the door frame.

“I’m um, you know, I have to drive, so I really need to watch how quickly I drink it,” she says, trying to not say _no_ , but to not say _yes_ , because she knows from experience that either one will likely excite him. Mr. Baelish was a great lawyer in the courtroom, but a monstrous pig in the office; she was only too happy to switch to working for Ms. Arryn, but then she found out they were married; yet another reason returning to California was not that appealing.

“Oh come on now, gorgeous, you don’t have to leave tonight. We can stay here, get comfortable, watch a movie, whatever you like. Big bad wolves are out on Halloween, tonight, Alayne. Stay here with me and we can have some fun,” he is speaking softly, voice dropping low as he advances, stepping into her space. She can smell the thick fog of cologne that hangs around him, can practically feel the aggression radiating off of him. She’d rather take her chances with the wolves.

“I’m not really comfortable with this, can we just ease it back a bit? I mean, I just got here,” she says, but now he’s drinking from her glass, two deep swallows, and she has to wonder at a man who must liquor himself up in order to gain the courage to do the evil things he clearly enjoys.

“Ease it back? Come on, we’ve done the three date rule, how much further do you want to ease it? I’m not asking for anything out of the question,” he says, and now his hand is on her hip, gripping her hard enough to hurt even through her jeans.

“Three dates?” She leans away from him until her head brushes the jamb, and then slithers out of the trap and steps backwards back into the front room, the limbo of space between sitting area and kitchen. “We met, we went bar hopping, of all things, and now we’re here. Even by the loosest definition of the word that’s just two. Not that the number of dates matters,” she says hastily, lest he think the way into her pants is just a numbers game. “It’s um, it’s when it’s right, for _both_ of us.”

“Trust me, gorgeous, it’s right for the both of us.” He follows her into the room, and her wine is gone now. Joff sets the empty glass on the countertop, as if he is marking his attempts at forced seduction around his apartment with abandoned stemware.  He grasps her again, this time with both hands, and rocks his hips forward as if _that_ would tempt her when all else has failed. “You’ll _love_ me, I promise,” he murmurs, and she shoves him back as hard as she can.

“No, goddammit, I said _no,_ ” Sansa snaps, away from him towards the little hall beside the kichen, going to grab her purse where it hangs on a hook beside his jacket, blessedly close to the front door. “I’m leaving. You’re behaving like a jackass, and I’m not sticking around to see how much worse you can get,” and her hand is inches away from closing on her purse strap when she feels a pair of hands reach around to grab her by the lapels of her coat, wrenching the jacket halfway down her arms, pinning them to her sides. “Get off of me,” she snarls, and when he reaches around her to grab her breasts she flings her head back, and the burst of pain on the back of her head is nothing compared to the grim satisfaction she gets from hearing him howl in pain.

***He staggers away from her and she manages to wriggle her arms out of her jacket, letting the damned thing fall to the wood floor, but when she turns to again grab her purse where her car keys are, he grabs her shoulder and spins her around, and as she turns he slaps her across the face so hard she sees stars and tastes blood, and Sansa drops to the floor like a rag doll she is so stunned from the impact, the pain, and the shock of it all.

“You fucking bitch,” he says, and her stomach roils when she hears his belt unbuckling. “If you’d only done as you were told it wouldn’t have to be this way, you know? This is _your_ fault, Alayne,” he grunts, and she is scrambling on her belly, has managed to get to her hands and knees when he kicks her in the butt, sending her sprawling in the short hall towards the front door.

Sansa flips onto her back just as he gets on his knees, jeans unzipped, and it’s clear that this is the kind of foreplay that gets Joff Lannister going. She flexes her foot and aims a kick at his stomach, heel first, and he grunts in pain, falls back on his butt, and she takes the opportunity to scream her head off, to kick the wall beside her in hopes of alerting his neighbor before trying to get to her feet again, but he is fueled with lust and hatred and anger, and just as she gets to her feet he lunges forward, grabbing her ankles, yanking her legs out from under her, and she falls hard, screaming, to her knees. His hands are a tight vise on her ankles, and her mind is a wild, rabid, feral blank, her only thought being _getoutgetoutgetout,_ and tears stream down her face because the hammering of her heart replies _Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t._ ***

There is a repeated pounding and then the splintering sound of thunder that makes the walls shake, a looming shadow that passes over her, making her wonder if the ceiling has ripped off to show the sky above, but then she sees the shards of door, the splinters of wood on the floor in front of her, and with a rush of relief painted in hysteria she understands. Sansa finally gets to her feet, gasping, sobbing, half-afraid she will have a heart attack, if she is not already having a panic attack.  She staggers to the kitchen, clings to the counter, half doubled over it as she tries in vain to control herself, to calm down, to just _breathe_ , and she says to herself _He’s here now, he’s here now, I’m safe now, I’m safe now._

“What the fuck is this?!” Joff screams. “You work for _me,_ you asshole!” And she turns in time to see Sandor, the flexing bands of muscle on his back visible through the gray thermal shirt he wears, bend down and haul Joff up by a fistful of cashmere sweater, only to send him flying back to the floor with the impact of a vicious punch to the face. The sweater rips, and Joff hits the wood with a hollow thud. Blood flies from his mouth, stains his teeth red, spatters on the wall she was kicking just moments ago in a desperate plea for help.

“You will _never_ touch her,” Sandor spits out, sinking to one knee as he strikes Joff again and again, some hitting his chest and stomach, some his face.  Each _smack_ of his fist makes her wince, makes her jerk, but she does not take her eyes away from the macabre scene, watches instead how Sandor’s elbow rises in the air before each blow, how there is blood on his knuckles, how he punches so hard and fast that stray locks of his black hair have come free from the knot on the back of his head. She watches how Joff’s face looks a mess, how his head lolls from the strikes, how she can no longer discern his cries of pain from Sandor’s cries of fury.

“You son of a bitch, if you ever touch her again, if I ever see you so much as _look_ at her again in this entire city, I will pull your head off with my _bare fucking hands_ ,” and Sandor drops his other knee to kneel above him before raining down a final punch that, judging from the resounding crack, most certainly breaks Joff’s nose. He snarls another obscenity or two and wipes his bloody hand on Joff’s torn sweater before he stands and spins on his heel. Her attacker does not move an inch, and she thinks maybe Sandor killed him, but then there is the wet, sucking sound of his breathing, and she doesn’t know whether she’s disappointed or relieved.

“Are you okay? _Are you okay_?” he says frantically, by her side in two strides, cupping her face in his large hands, eyes roaming her face for any sign of trauma. They stop on her mouth and she watches him frown, watches his mouth turn down. _He looks like he is in pain,_ she thinks, _he is in pain for me,_ and if it were under any other circumstance, that knowledge would warm her, but she’s a shell right now, and cannot feel it. “Christ almighty, you’re bleeding,” he says, pulling her in and against his chest, and she closes her eyes, chest still heaving, sobs still wracking her though they’re silent now at least, because he is _here,_ because he _came_ _here_ for her, and it’s that to which she clings for dear life.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I just want to leave. Please let’s leave,” she mumbles into his shirt, into the clean smell of him that means she’s safe. He nods and releases her, looks around briefly, assessing, grabs her jacket from the floor and her purse from its hook, and then he looks back to her. Her legs buckle beneath her because she is just so relieved to _see_ him, and he’s back to her side in a heartbeat, holding her up with a single forearm braced against her back, and she grabs his shirt with two hands, one bunching the fabric on his stomach, the other on his shoulder blade. “I just want to go,” she says again.

“Can you walk?” He is looking at her with a concerned frown, thinking the answer must surely be no, but she nods emphatically.

“I’m fine, please, let’s just go,” she says, mastering herself, and he nods again, taking her by the hand and leading her through the doorframe, and they have to step over the pieces, duck under the one chunk that still clings by its hinge and to the jamb. Her fingers entwine with his and she can feel the torn skin on them, but if her touch stings, he makes no note of it, only squeezes her tighter as they flee.

He does not let her hand go as they jog down the stairs, only does so when he pulls her tight to his body with an arm over her shoulders as they walk briskly down the sidewalk to where her car is parked, and he holds out her purse as they walk, orders her to get her keys, which she does, handing them to him with a trembling hand. He clicks the unlock button on the keychain and pulls open the passenger side, and before Sansa knows what he’s doing he turns to her and lifts her in his arms as if she were a child and places her gently on the seat.

“What about _your_ car?” She asks, her teeth chattering. “You can’t leave it here, he’ll recognize it.”  He shakes his head no, slams her door shut and jogs around the front of the car to get into the driver’s side of the 4Runner.

“I walked,” he says by way of answer, and she is too shaken up to question him, to ask what that even means, only watches as he braces an arm on the back of her seat and reverses the SUV, turns to face forward and puts the car in drive, and there is nothing but relief to see the oncoming headlights illuminate the scarred side of him. She has never been so happy to see them, because it means it’s him here.

She sinks back gratefully against the seat once they’re moving, closing her eyes, but she cannot keep from shaking like a leaf, cannot keep the tears from running down her face, and then the severity of what nearly happened descends on her with its full weight, and she hunches over, face in her hands, and sobs. It is the sounds of a wild animal in pain, it is panic and relief all at once, a combination that is so twisting and insane that she wants to pull her hair out, wants to crawl in the footwell of the passenger side and hide, but then there is the warmth of a hand on her back, and a “Shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay now, I’ve got you now, you’re okay,” that reminds her of a dream she’s had. She cries until he pulls into her driveway and parks and kills the engine, and when he twists to face her she knows it, and takes her forehead off her knees to launch herself over the console and against him, and he holds her there until she can breathe without a sob hitching it, cracking it, stealing it.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” he whispers hoarsely after an unknown amount of time, after the fierce beating of his heart calms her down; she listens to it with her eyes clenched shut, focusing on the powerful _thumpthump_ , and on how his hand smoothes her hair away from her face, how the callouses of his fingertips feel along her hairline, how they are the gentlest thing she’s experienced tonight.

She nods finally, sits up slowly, but when he opens the door she reaches out, snatching up his hand, eyes wide with fear because she is terrified to be alone in this dark car. Sandor is halfway out the door, a foot on the ground, a foot in the car, and he turns to her, looking at their hands and then up at her. Hair hangs in his eyes from the exertion of beating Joff, and while there is still a wilderness in his eyes lurking in the background, there is mostly concern for her, boiling hot worry. He nods encouragingly to her.

“I’ll be right here, okay? I’m just going to open your door, all right, lass? You stay right here, I’m coming for you now.” Sandor keeps nodding his head until she does as well, and then he squeezes her hand in his, firm, warm, strong, before releasing her, stepping out of the car and slamming shut the door. It makes her jump, start shaking all over again, but he strides quickly around the car and is by her side again, helping her out of the car, waiting patiently for her to find her footing. 

“I c-can’t stop sh-shaking,” she stammers, and he helps her to the stairs, his large arm wound beneath hers to keep her from falling. She clings to him, thinks of ivy on a brick wall; thinks that’s what they are right now.

“That’ll be the shock,” he says quietly with his graveled voice, and he is patient with her as she takes the stairs slowly, wobbly as a fawn, the adrenaline that helped her to flee down Joff’s stairs having fled. When Sansa’s knees buckle Sandor pins her to his side with one arm as he unlocks the door and kicks it open. “Come on up, love,” he says, stooping to lift her in his arms, and she blinks, hung up on his words. _But I’m in shock, he says, I must’ve misheard him, he said lass just like he always does,_ and so she curls into herself in his arms, bowing her head against his chest, clinging to him with her arms around his neck as he brings her into her home, into _their_ home.

“What going on? What the hell happened?” She hears her brother after the noise of the TV is shut off, his voice louder than usual, likely due to the strange sight they must present. “Jesus Christ, is she all right?” Sansa knows she should say she’s fine, should lift her head to reassure her brother, but she is altogether too occupied trying to keep herself from screaming, so she stays burrowed and hunkered down in Sandor’s arms.

‘She’s okay, mate. She’s okay. Joff came after her but she’s okay. She’s in shock and she needs to lie down so that’s where I’m taking her,” Sandor says with authority as he strides down the hallway, nearly sideways to keep her from hitting her head or feet on the walls, but of course he does this with ease because he’s had plenty of practice.

“He _came after_ her? Like, hit her or- oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,” Rickon says as he follows Sandor down the hall, and his voice drops to a lethal whisper. “ _He didn’t fucking dare_ ,” he says, and Sansa hears Shireen murmuring to him, trying, most likely, to calm him down. “No, don’t you get what he was saying? What he means by that? He _raped_ her, Shireen,” Rickon says, voice a snarl, but just as Sandor walks into her room he turns to his left, and Sansa, head resting against his right shoulder, can see down the hall, can see her baby brother and how his heart breaks when they make eye contact. “Sansa, please,” he croaks, but then Sandor speaks over him.

“He didn’t get to do it, Rickon, I was there and I stopped him, so calm down. Shireen, calm him down. Listen, your sister is in shock. She needs peace and quiet and that does not include you losing your fucking mind right now, all right, Ric? So keep your shit together,” he says, and then he sighs. “Please, mate, let me take care of her, all right?” And then he turns back to her bed. “I’m going to put you down now, all right, lass?” Sansa nods numbly, but the moment she feels the mattress beneath her and the curve of his arms loosen around her she starts trembling again, so violently her teeth chatter again. He stands to his full height once she’s fully released, and she reaches out for his hand again, tugging him close to her.

“Sandor, please don’t leave. Please don’t leave me,” she shivers, and he crouches down beside her, covering their entwined fingers with his free hand.

“I will not leave you, Sansa. I am going to get you water, and then I am going to be right back, all right?”

“You’ll be right back,” she echoes, and he nods, squeezes her hand, letting go slowly, as if releasing a butterfly back into the wild. And then he stands swiftly, and to avoid brushing past Rickon and Shireen, who stand in mute confusion in the hallway, staring at her, Sandor goes through his own room to the kitchen.

“San,” Rickon says, but she shakes her head, closing her eyes.

“Not now, bub,” she whispers. “Later on, but not now, okay?”

“He did- he tried- he tried to do _that_ to you? Seriously?” Rickon asks, voice higher pitched from the inclusion of disbelief and horror. “Just tell me that, and I’ll leave you alone, Sansa, but you have to tell me _something_ , please.”

“Yes, he did, he- he _tried_ ,” she says, drawing her knees into her chest, “but he didn’t. Now please, go away, okay? I just, please,” she says, and Shireen puts her hands on her brother’s arm, circling it lightly, tugging him backwards out of the hall and back into the front room. Rickon walks backwards, tortured eyes pinned on her before they disappear into the living room.

Sansa closes her eyes, listens to the sounds of water running in the kitchen, of the refrigerator door opening and closing, and then his heavy, sure footsteps on the floorboards. When she opens her eyes he is there in her room, gently kicking shut her bedroom door behind him. _He is such a large man,_ she thinks dazedly, thinking of lithe, fine boned Joff and the horrors that exist within his birdlike frame. _Such a big man, and nothing to fear, not here with me._

 Sandor sets down a bowl and a clean dish towel on her dresser before handing her a glass of water, and though she swears she is not thirsty, mumbles as much to him, he shakes his head and insists upon at least one sip. So she does, finds that she’s parched, throat dry as a desert from screaming, from crying, from the entire nightmare, and Sansa knocks back half the glass before coming up for air.

“Now,” he says, taking her glass when she’s done, setting it beside the bowl. “Let’s have a look at that face, lass.” Sandor picks up the bowl and cloth and squats down in front of her. She slides her legs off the bed so she faces him, and he familiarly props his elbow on her knee after he dunks the cloth in the bowl of water and brings it to her face.

“It’s just the one cut,” she mumbles. “He only hit me once. I’m okay, Sandor.”

“Ah,” he says. “I think, though, you forgot about the makeup,” and then she remembers her liquid eyeliner, her mascara, thinks of how her cheeks must be a sooty blackish gray from eyelids to chin, and then she realizes she does not care. “There we are,” he murmurs, eyes on her left cheek as he dabs her face with the lightest of touches, careful of the tender spot from Joff’s slap, and she studies him up close for the first time, because he is so focused on his task that he does not turn his hide his scars. He is gray eyes, dark eyebrows that are knit together from worry and concentration, he is a mouth that is set in determination as it nearly always is, and once more there is confirmation in her heart that she very much likes his face. She watches as his eyes move as he studies her, sweeping from left to right, up and down, watches him frown when he sees the blood in the corner of her mouth, shaking his head infinitesimally as he dunks the rag in the water again.  “I could kill him,” he mutters.

“You very nearly did, I think, with that last one. It was a hard punch,” she says. He snorts. She wants to touch his scars again, wants to hold his head to her heart in gratitude, in relief, in need. She wants to tell him this, but the lines of more elegant communication between her brain and her mouth are down, so she simply sits as he cleans her up, tries to gather up the sensations that comfort and calm her, like the weight of his arm on her knee, the cool cloth on her face, the fact that he is here, right here up close with her, the knowledge that no one here will hurt her.

“Not hard enough. Hard enough would have been my fist reaching the floor through his fucking face,” he says, and despite the act of violence nearly inflicted upon her tonight, despite the ones that did come to pass, his words are a comfort, regardless of how crass they might be. _Not because of what he says,_ she thinks, gazing at his face as he washes her other cheek now, _but because of who he is; who he is to_ me _._

“Sandor,” she says, and his gray eyes flick from her jaw up to her eyes, and he pauses in his administrations, perhaps realizing finally that he has been the subject of her observation. He hums a question mark by way of reply and she bites her lip. “Will you please stay? Like, here. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, and I know that- well, I mean, will you please stay here tonight?”

Sandor smiles up at her, eyes crinkling from the warmth of it, and then he lowers his gaze to her jaw again, giving it a final touch of the cool, damp cloth. It is the first full smile he’s ever made in her presence, reaching his eyes, reaching out to her.

“I told you I’d not leave you, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“I am a man of my word.”

And he is. He sits in her floral chair while she showers with the door closed, is there, ever alert, eyes on her when she opens the door with wet hair, dressed in a loose flannel shirt and pajama shorts, though his expression darkens when his eyes lower to her knees. She forgot; she would have worn long pants if she’d remembered the bruises she got from Joff yanking her down to the hard floor.

“Oh, Sansa,” he sighs, standing up as she slides into bed, drawing her legs to her chest under the comforting weight of her covers, and he comes to stand beside her bed. “I’m going to go take a shower, if that’s all right, and then I’ll change and sleep here.” He pauses, studying her face, and there must be terror there because he hesitates. “Would you like me to shower here, or in the hall bathroom?”

“Here, please,” she says. The thought of him leaving this room, the thought of being anywhere away from him makes her shiver and shake, conjures up memories of Joff striking her, the sound of his belt unbuckling, the feeling of her feet being dragged out from under her, the horror of being alone through all of it. Sandor nods, resting a hand on her shoulder, and she tips her face to press her cheek to it. She closes her eyes when he squeezes her shoulder, the lightest of pressures but the sweetest all the same.

“Then I’ll be right back, all right?” It is her turn to nod, and he’s as quick as he promised, a man of his word, bringing in his pajamas and shampoo, and he showers quickly as well, the sounds of the shower curtain being pushed open reaching her ears mere minutes after he turned on the water. His long hair is wet and loose when he comes out, dampening the shoulders of his t-shirt, and he flicks both room and bathroom lights off when he emerges, takes the blanket folded on the foot of her bed and walks towards the floral chair in the corner, and that’s when she speaks up.

“No,” she says, and he stops in a half turn, is a great broad shadow even in the darkness.

“Yes?”

Sansa points to the cool, untouched pillow beside hers. “Will you stay _here_ , tonight? _Here_ , with me. I don’t- please don’t make me sleep all by myself. I already see mom and dad and Robb whenever I close my eyes at night. If I’m alone tonight, I’m scared I’ll see _him_ , and I don’t want that, please,” she says, and she’s crying again, face in her hands, throat sore from so much use tonight.

But then the mattress sinks down beside her, and he’s there, crooning to her, his accent making his words unrecognizable as rolling and rumbling and low as they are, and she turns, twists, sinks down to find that he’s waiting there for her, and his shoulder is her pillow, one she cries into as Sandor’s hand sweeps down her back, down her back, over and over again, even after her tears abate into hiccups, even after those eventually fade entirely and she’s breathing, more or less regularly, breathing the scent of him, the warmth of him, the surety of him.

“Sleep, now. I’ve got you, my girl,” he says, his words a vibration against her cheek, his hand an ever present comfort on her back.

“Please don’t leave after I fall asleep,” she says, because it’s easy now to say in the dark, it’s easy now to say in his arms, easy now to say after he calls her _my girl._ “You’ve left me here twice already, and it nearly broke my heart the last time.” His hand stills a moment on her back, and she worries she’s gone and said too much, but then he moves, and her eyes close, her heart leaps, once, when he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I gave you my word, love,” and she finds the courage to run her hand and slide her arm across his stomach, to pull herself closer to him, and when his other arm wraps itself around her, only then does Sansa find the courage to sleep.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Safe From Harm - Massive Attack


	14. Open Me Slowly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rickon's anger management. SanSan up in the HOUSE. The Hangover, starring Renly Baratheon.
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> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115045102283/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-14-open-me-slowly)

Shireen drags Rickon out the hallway and away from his sister, and he thinks the image of Sansa sitting on her bed hugging her knees with her face streaked black with tear tracks and the slash of red in the corner of her mouth will forever be burned into his brain. It is a scorching brand, a tattoo of pain on his soul. He and Shireen were curled up with each other watching television, were so happy, and then in walked Sandor with his crying sister in his arms, as if he found a bird with a broken wing on the sidewalk. Rickon squeezes his eyes shut, but he can’t erase it, can’t delete it, can’t make it fade. He staggers away from Shireen, though the feeling of drawing himself out of her hands is another source of pain, but he cannot handle this right now, and he cannot be contained, not even by her.

Rickon is about to scream his fury when Shireen turns from him, stooping to pick up his shoes, and then she tosses them at his feet. He stares at them, mystified, but then she sits on the couch to pull her boots on over her jeans. “Go on,” she says, nodding to his shoes, “put them on. We’re going somewhere. Some place I want to show you.”

Rickon doesn’t know what to make of this, and he stands there staring at her, chest heaving, mind about to explode, and he feels like he has forgotten language, forgotten how to speak or listen, only remembers anger and pain and hate because he is full to the brim with all of those. Shireen stands and shrugs into her pea coat, buttoning it before walking to him.

“Come on, honey, you need to blow off steam, and Sansa clearly needs to be alone.” He stares at her, sees her naked and moaning, sees her laughing and teasing, sees her hurt and angry, sees all the parts of her that he’s learned and enjoyed, and he wants to listen to her, but then there is his sister, a hallway and a closed door away, though right now if feels as if she’s back on the west coast she feels so parted from him.

“She’s with Sandor, though,” he says, finally finding his voice, and it makes him want to cringe because he speaks like a jealous little kid, but he wants Sansa to feel better and he wants to be the one to help.  “She told me to go away but he gets to stay.”

“She needs him right now, okay? I’d need you, if that had happened to me. I’d need to feel safe, and sometimes a lover makes a woman feel safer than a brother.”

“Lover,” he echoes, not understanding, and he feels brain dead when Shireen smiles softly to him, sympathetic, understanding of how men are slow to pick up on this sort of thing.

“Yeah, honey, I think so. Now come on. Take me for a spin on your bike, and let’s get some of that rage out of you, okay?” She reaches up to run her fingers through his hair, making him close his eyes, making him want to cry as much as he wants to scream.

He finally concedes and ties on his chucks, zips on Robb’s old motorcycle jacket, catches his keys when she tosses them to him and then they’re on the road, her arms around him, and she taps him either on the left or right thigh to indicate when he should turn, a system they have come up with in the short week they’ve been what Rickon assumes is called a couple. There aren’t any more trick-or-treaters out as it’s almost ten, but there is a dark, brooding quality to the night air that he can’t just blame on the trauma Sansa went through, and he blames it on ghosts and spirits, devils and other evil things. _Lannisters,_ he thinks bitterly, _I blame it on them, most of all._

She guides him down to the grocery store, indicating he park when he thinks he’s maybe cutting through the parking lot, and hops off the second he kills the engine, she is that used to riding with him now, and when he wrenches off his helmet, he is irritated.

“Really, Shireen? You wanted to show me Kroger? I’ve been here before, just to let you know,” he snaps, swinging his leg over the bike as he gets off, but she links her arm through his and tugs him to the sliding doors.

“We’re here for supplies,” she says matter-of-factly, “and _then_ we’re going to the place I want to show you.”

They walk down the aisles, the florescent lights bright and glaring in his eyes, and when she gets toilet paper he’s confused, but when she goes to the other side of the store and grabs an eighteen pack of eggs, Rickon gets it.

“We’re going to go roll someone’s house?” He asks in a half-whisper as they walk to the self-check to avoid suspicious looks from cashiers. “That’s going to make me feel better about Joff trying to rape Sansa? I want to wrap my hands around that fucker’s throat and squeeze the life out of him, and you’re taking me on a Halloween prank?”

“Not just anyone, and not just a house,” she says cryptically, thrusting the four pack of toilet paper and eggs in a plastic sack. “Just trust me, okay? Do you have any cash?” Rickon does, having just acquired a job at a moving company, and he gets paid every day under the table. He feeds a ten into the machine, casting suspicious, skeptical looks her way, but she just smiles blandly at him.

Back on the bike, she guides him through the streets, and while he pays attention to the road as always, there is sick roil of anger sitting in the bottom of his stomach that is a constant distractor, and so he is just going through the motions, is on auto pilot, checking left and right, stopping at red lights, following her directions with each tap on his leg. Soon they are on a deserted street close to downtown, and she points to an old Victorian style house in an industrial neighborhood just past the interstate, makes him stop. It’s a pretty house with a small, manicured lawn the size of a postage stamp, and there are two young trees, one on either side of the bricked walkway leading up to its front door. And there, creaking slightly as it sways to and fro in the chilly breezes, is a sign that reads LANNISTER REALTY.

“No shit,” he murmurs after taking off his helmet. Shireen takes hers off as well and together they sit in silence in the dark on this silent street, staring up at what must be Tywin Lannister’s headquarters. She tips her head to rest it on his shoulder, and he reaches back to pull her against him, is grateful to have her.

“I knew if we hung around that house you’d get your blood up, go track down Joff and beat the shit out of him, beat him to death, most likely,” she murmurs. “I can’t have you turn into a murderer, Ric, but I can let you be a vandal. I mean, hell, you’re already an ex-con,” she says, “what’s a little toilet paper?” and he turns to kiss her as a thank you.

“Then let’s get this party started,” he says, and he is the first to throw an egg. They throw all eighteen of them, running to and fro in the small yard, trying to cover as much surface as possible, laughing at how childish it all is, but then he sees a rock in the earth beneath one of the trees, and he remembers how delicious it is, the sound of glass breaking. He’s got it in his hand before he knows it, and she gasps when his arm rears back and he flings it towards the large bay window on the right side of the house. It breaks the center pane, splintering it, though the rock only leaves behind a hole slightly bigger than itself, and he finds it is not enough.

“That’s for my sister,” he snarls, looking around for something, anything, and then sees a loose brick in the walkway, and Shireen helps him pry it loose, stays down on her knees, watching as he hurls it. “That’s for my brother,” and when he looks back down to the path Shireen is holding up another brick, dirt on her fingers from working so diligently to loosen it. The building up and boiling over of his anger burbles to a stop as his fingers brush hers when he closes his hand around the brick, and Rickon knows in this moment that he is in love with her. He grins indulgently, pleased with the realization and what it means, and the solemn look on her face shatters into one of delinquent delight, so wicked a smile she wears. They nod to one another, and he walks closer to the house, chucking it with all his strength towards the right window pane. The brick hits the glass on its long, flat side and the entire pane shatters, leaving only tooth-like shards sticking out from the upper and lower frames. “And that’s for my mother.”

Shireen is by his side all of a sudden, and he turns to watch as she flings another brick, screams “That’s for my uncle, you bastards!” and Rickon is impressed to see how good of an aim she has, is pleased when she breaks the left pane of the bay window, and his anger is happy to find its mate in her. But still, it’s not enough, he wants this fucking place to burn to the ground, which is why he goes back to the bike, possessed with the idea, and he tears into the toilet paper, grabs a roll and holds it up as he digs the lighter from the pocket of his jeans.

“Rickon, wait,” Shireen whispers as she sprints back to him. “Wait a second, wait a second, let’s think about this,” she says in a rush, eyes widened in the dark. But it’s too late, he has lit the thing on fire, and Rickon strides forward once the roll is completely enflamed and he flings it through the hole in the glass he has made, as if it was his plan all along. _Maybe it was,_ he thinks as the ball of fire sails through the air, lands in the deep, dark recess of the room. He turns before watching to see if the flames caught and returns to the plastic bag hanging off the handlebar of his bike. _Robb’s bike,_ he thinks. _Robb’s bike and Robb’s jacket. If it wasn’t for these Lannisters they would still be his,_ and it’s enough to drive him to light the second roll.

“Get it over with and then we’re out of here,” Shireen hisses as it catches fire. Rickon nods, all business as he turns with a hand full of fire, and he jogs to the house, standing mere feet away, and he aims this shot for the drapes over the window in the rear of the room, which he sees now must be Tywin’s office. The first roll has caught the carpet on fire, and it is a floor of crawling, glowing embers, makes him think of playing hot lava in his bedroom with Bran, jumping on the beds, trying to avoid the floor.

“And this is for my father,” he says, leaning back on one foot before throwing it, full force, into the room. It lands with a whump right where he wanted it. There is a wild voice in Rickon’s head and it gives a violent cheer when he hears the sound of flames go _whoosh._ He grins and runs back to the bike, wants to throw another one but Shireen is shaking her head from inside her helmet, from her seat on the bike. He ignores it, too caught up in the thrill of it, the revenge of it, the rage of it, and reaches for the third roll but she grabs his wrist.

“No, goddammit, it’s enough. Look, Rickon,” she says, panting from fear, pointing to the house. He glances over and the room is already an inferno. The fires illuminate the jagged shards of glass hanging and jutting from the window frames and it looks, in that instant, like the gaping maw of some hideous, hell-sent monster. He feels a vicious sort of pride, having made the largest jack-o-lantern in the city, and does not argue when Shireen manually shoves his helmet on his head and drags him towards the bike. He hands her the plastic bag and she wears the handles of it like a bracelet as she grips him around the waist, and he gives his handiwork one final glance before tearing down the street. It takes him a few moments to realize he’s laughing hysterically; it echoes in savage peels within the confines of his helmet, and his only regret is that Cersei and Joff aren’t in that motherfucking house while it burns.

Sandor’s dreams are a scatter of relived moments; a long walk with a pounding heart, kicking and slamming his shoulder into a door until it breaks apart, blood and bruised knuckles, but what wakes him is the dream that is just her screaming, and he flinches, jerks so hard he rouses himself, eyes snapping open, breath trapped in his throat. It takes him several seconds to realize where he is, here in her bed, to realize that she is all right because she’s here with him, her long, narrow back pressed against his chest, her body curled around the arm he has wrapped around her, his bicep her pillow.

He closes his eyes, tries to mentally calm himself down, to will himself back to sleep because it feels too early, because she is still sleeping and he will not wake her, not for the world, but then she stirs. He opens his eyes again to see Sansa twist onto her back, turn in his arms to face him, looking for all the world like she is asleep, but when he lifts a hand to push her hair from her face she opens her eyes. He’s trapped there in her gaze, fingers frozen at her temple, and when she smiles at him, a sleepy thing that makes him think of sun-bleached sheets flapping on a clothesline, he is finished, he is a lost man.

“Hi,” she says, soft as a kitten.

“Hi,” he replies, unable to keep himself from smiling back. He unfolds his left arm that is curled beneath her head, brings his hand to her shoulder to hold her to him. He remembers his task and his fingers flex, move again, drawing the strands of her hair away from her eyes, from the fine curve of her cheekbone, and he is dismayed to see the faint purple of a bruise there. He brushes his thumb against it, lightly, but she does not wince, only smiles brighter.

“You’re still here,” she sighs, and it’s a happy thing, ballooned with relief, and it warms him here in this cocoon with her, a little den that is just the two of them, the sweet smell of her hair, the slender, light weight of her arm around him, draped like a fine ribbon over his ribs, the sweetness between them here in this soft, feminine world of hers.

“There is nowhere I’d rather be,” he says, and it’s a relief of his, too, to admit it, to look into the face of it and call it by its name and show it to her. He glances to the contusion on her cheek, the little sliver of dried blood in the corner of her mouth, and while there will always be anger in him at the evidence of Sansa being hurt, right now the scale tips in favor of concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m, um,” she says, and he’s sorry that his question makes her smile fade, but she does not cry, and for that he’s grateful because last night her tears nearly killed him. “I just… I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to talk about it, or him. I’m safe and I’m sound now, and I just want to focus on that.”

“Right,” he says, sighing thoughtfully as he regards her, pushes her hair back from her temple once more, mostly for the excuse to touch her again. He’s not sure why he’s here, not sure of the context, though he knows he will never forget what she said last night before she fell asleep in his arms, long before he himself did. _You’ve left me alone twice already, and it nearly broke my heart the last time._ It is hard for him to believe, hard for him to imagine, but those words suggest he’s here in her bed and her arms for more than just to be a security blanket, a great ugly teddy bear to cling to and seek comfort from. Sandor holds onto her words like flotsam from a shipwreck, decides for once not to drown in self-doubt.

She closes her eyes as he brushes her hair with his fingers, and her stillness and her compliance are encouraging enough that soon he’s sweeping his hand from root to tip, fingers fully buried in the softness of it, and each pass of his hand sends up the smell of coconuts, and for some reason, though he has not cried since his grandparents died, inexplicably there is a burning in his eyes. Is it the sweetness of her shampoo, the fans of her lashes against her cheeks, the feel of her here, so close to him? He realizes it is the echo of the very real fear from last night that something happened to her before he burst through the door, a fear that he had failed her, the subsequent shattering relief that he had gotten to her in time. _Only just,_ he thinks, and then his hold on her tightens and he pulls her closer to him, kisses her forehead like he did last night.

“I’m so sorry,” he mutters before he can help himself. “I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t there earlier, Sansa,” he says against her brow, and because she is precious to him, because he cannot help himself he kisses the top of her head again, and he is relieved to feel her press closer to him for it instead of shying away from the affection.

 “Please don’t say sorry,” she says, her arm tightening around his back, making him wince; he’s likely got a bruise from shoulder to hip from slamming his right side repeatedly into Joff’s door. But it’s a reminder that she’s got her arm around him, and so the pain is a blessing. “Say sorry when you’ve done something wrong, not when you’ve done something right. And where did you even _come_ from last night? You told me you walked, but…” Sandor clears his throat, runs his fingers through her hair again, and it’s her hair he speaks to.

“Aye, I walked. I parked a few blocks away from here and I walked. I didn’t want to give it away that I was watching him.” She rears back a bit in his arms, regarding him incredulously, and he is made to look back at her.

“You walked? It’s like five miles!”

“Well, it’s four, actually,” and he chuckles at her shocked expression. “It’s not _that_ far. It was a nice night out, there were lots of trick-or-treaters to scare, and, you know, I had a lot on my mind.”

“You’re _not_ scary, first off,” she insists.

“Said Red Riding Hood to the wolf,” he smirks, and she slides the arm from around him to lay her hand on his scars, bold as brass as a wordless reply to him, and he closes his eyes, tilts his face up into the touch, and now she’s stroking his cheek as lightly as he strokes her hair, and hope rears up in him, hope and a painful, painful yearning.

“What sort of stuff was on your mind?” She asks, and with his eyes closed it’s easy to reply with the truth.

“You, mostly,” he admits. Her hand lifts, and he feels her fingertips run through his hair, and it’s impossible, _this is impossible,_ he thinks, _that she’s here, that_ I’m _here, and she’s caressing me like a lover._ Sandor is unable to keep in the sigh that escapes him, the growling hum that chases it. “I was so worried about you, Sansa, going there alone” he says, and there is a shift in his arms, the return of blood to his arm in painful prickles when she lifts her head. His eyes fly open when Sansa gifts a kiss to his scarred cheek before kissing him on the lips, making his head spin, though there is a part of him that recognizes it as the most natural thing in the world, her mouth pressed to his. “Sansa, what the—” he starts to say, but she shushes him effectively by speaking.

“How is it that such a big tough guy like you can be so gentle, and a, a _boy_ like Joff can be so full of hate and, and _evil_ like that? How is that?” He thinks on how he pulverized the door when it stood between them, how badly he beat Joff right in front of her and wonders how she can call him gentle. But there she is, in his arms, bright blue gaze flitting from feature to feature as if trying to divine the answer from his face.

“I am not a gentle man. I’m no Joff, but I’m no saint, either,” and she rolls her eyes with a smile, clearly not believing him.

“Then what kind of man are you, Sandor, if you’re not gentle?” Her hand comes to rest on the nape of his neck, her thumb brushing his earlobe, a teasing touch, the lightest of touches, but it’s been a long, long time since a woman has had her hands on him in such an intimate way, and he must concentrate, must focus on this conversation in order to control himself.

“An honest one,” he says after thinking on it a moment.

“Okay, then be honest with me now. You’ve slept here all night but you didn’t once make a move.” It is Sandor’s turn to rear back, needing a few extra inches to stare at her, alarmed as he is.

“I’m definitely not _that_ kind of man, Sansa. I would _never_ , especially not after what you went through,” he says, astounded.

“I know you’re not. I know you wouldn’t. But did you _want_ to? Do you want me that way?” He stares at her, but her expression, aside from determined, is unreadable now. Sandor sighs, surrendering.

“Of course I want you, Sansa,” he murmurs. _I have wanted you since I clapped my eyes on you,_ he thinks, remembering her wide blue eyes, how the light winked off the water on her skin, the towel she clutched to her chest, the tumble of wet red hair, hair that’s been dyed brown for that prick Joff. “How could I not?”

The smile she gives him now is rich, full of satisfaction tired though she looks. “But you didn’t try a single thing. You’ve held me as I’ve cried more times than I can count now, you’ve put me to bed three times without so much as a wandering hand, you’ve watched movies with me, given me the food off your plate. You’ve been there for me, and haven’t even asked for one thing in return. _That_ makes you gentle,” she says with not a small amount of triumph in her voice, “ _that_ makes you a good man,” and he laughs at her smug expression despite the insanity of it all, here where he rests on his side, face to face in bed with Sansa, their arms around one another, memories of kisses on his cheek and mouth.

“Only for you, then, and that’s all the compromise you’re getting,” he says, pleased to see the grin on her face at his admittance, at his defeat, and he shakes his head at her. “Crazy woman,” he says, and without thinking he runs his thumb across her mouth up to where that damned cut interrupts the taper of lower lip to the corner, and before he can help himself, he lifts his head from the pillow and presses his mouth to it, as light as he can, as if a kiss from an ugly man could make it feel better. Her hand flexes at the back of his neck and he is effectively held in place when she kisses him back in full, and Sandor thinks he might be going mad.

He feels his fingers sink and disappear into her hair when he mirrors her move, cradling the back of head in the palm of his hand, and he wants to laugh at how _this_ , this most chaste of kisses can unravel him, make his heart pound like a teenager’s, but then her lips part and he’s got the taste of her tongue to drown in. _Oh God,_ he thinks, or maybe he says it out loud because she smiles into the kiss in that moment, sighs into his mouth when her lips part once more, and he wraps both arms around her, both the right and the tingling, half-asleep left that is still beneath her, pulling her as close to him as he can. She has one arm pinned between their chests, but it squirms and wriggles free to slide around his neck where the other is already draped, and Sansa pulls him towards her, rolls onto her back, and now he’s wondering who is the stronger of the two.

He frees his arms from between her and the bed, propping himself up on his left elbow as he holds her face with his right hand, and _Christ she keeps kissing me,_ he thinks, but he grunts in pain when she runs her hands beneath his shirt and up his sides, and it’s enough of an interruption to make her break the kiss, much to his infinite sorrow.

“What’s wrong?” He shakes his head to say _Nothing, don’t worry_ but she’s cleverer than that, and when she pulls up his shirt and peers down she gasps. “Oh my God! What on earth?”

Sandor closes his eyes and groans as she tugs the shirt up and over his head and shoulders. “It’s nothing, Sansa, honestly. This is not the reason I imagined you undressing me for,” he quips.

“Shush,” she says, sitting up as he lies back, and she draws her hair over her shoulder as she gets on her knees. “Come on, Sandor, let me see,” and he grumbles and mutters as he rolls onto his stomach and folds his arms under his chin. She hisses a sharp inhale at the sight, and he sighs. It must look as bad as it feels, or worse, judging by her reaction.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats lamely, but he winces when her fingers drift along his shoulder, down his ribs, and then he thinks maybe it’s not nothing after all.

“You’re black and blue. You did all that damage to yourself for me?” She whispers, and there’s no guard up for him anymore, not with the taste of her still on his tongue, the memory of her arms around him, the feeling of her beneath him when she rolled them over. He’s a ruined line of defense because of her, an entire army slaughtered from the devastating blow of just one of her smiles.

“I would do anything for you,” he admits.

“Sandor,” she murmurs, and his name never sounds so sweet as it does when she says it. He opens his eyes, turns over to see her sitting there on her knees, eyes widened beneath her furrowed brow. He sits up with his back against the headboard, is about to reassure her that he’s all right and it’s _her_ they need to be focused on, but then she crawls to him, over him, sits astride his lap and cups his face in her hands, and if he thought what they were doing before was kissing it is because he is an idiot.

His hands slide up her back beneath her shirt when he lifts his arms around her, and she gasps at the contact, wind her arms over his shoulders when he sits up away from the headboard, and this is what possession must feel like, because she is consuming him, stealing away his soul as surely as she did his heart, nearly every waking thought. Time dissolves for him and he doesn’t know how long they stay like this, all wound up in and around one another, but when her legs unfold on either side of him and wrap around him, when she settles achingly firm on top of his erection and tilts her hips against him he comes back into himself.

“Sansa, no, wait, I can’t- if you- I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands in a minute if you don’t slow down, if we don’t stop,” he stammers, tongue tied from her and his subsequent arousal. Stopping is the last thing he wants but after everything that happened to her, how could he go forward? He draws his head back to look at her, and she’s as wild as a siren with her swollen lips and her darkened eyes, and despite his words and his warning he spears his fingers into her hair, runs his thumb across her mouth.

“Stop? Why would we stop,” she asks against his thumb, kissing the pad of it, making him moan, “when it feels so perfect? This,” she says, kissing him, tilting her hips again, and yes, yes, this is him going insane, and it also _just_ might be him coming in his pants, “this is the best I’ve felt in so long I can’t even remember. Please don’t make it stop, Sandor,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper against his mouth, breaking him into pieces, and he wonders if he’s crying because it’s agony, dancing on the edge of this blade.

 “I will give you anything you want,” he says. There is freedom here, freedom in letting go and giving up, giving in, freedom in admitting that he is powerless when it comes to her.

“I just want you,” she says, and he laughs because she’s had him since she stepped out of that bathroom two months ago, because he already slayed himself at her altar on some September night. A matter of weeks, but it might as well be a lifetime.

“Oh, my girl, you’ve got me,” he assures her, and the hands on her bare back draw up, taking her flannel shirt with them, and at last he can feast his eyes on her, can kiss her wherever his gaze wanders, and wander it does. It stirs up a deep seated, hungry pride in him to hear her gasp and whimper, sigh and moan when he cups her breasts to his face, when he licks them, kisses his way from nipple to collarbone, throat to mouth, and the sweet tug of pain he feels from how she fists his hair feeds that pride as well.

Sandor sits back when she rises to her knees, gets lost in the slow slide of his hands as they follow her shorts down her thighs, and when she bends her knees up to be free of her clothes he kisses the bruises that have blossomed on each kneecap. He lifts his hips obediently when she curls her fingers into the waistband of his pants and boxer briefs, commits to memory the way it feels when she settles naked back on his lap. He sits up so he can feel the soft spread of her breasts against the pads of his chest, the hot wetness of her mouth when she kisses him, so he can hold her to him, let her know he has her, that he’s hers, and it’s then that she lowers down fully on him. Hot blinding white light is what it feels like, and it is exquisite misery to stay still, to keep himself in check and not lose absolute control when she moves her hips, finds a rhythm he cannot hear, only feel.

Sansa moans his name when he rocks himself upwards into her, clings to him so tightly he isn’t sure anymore where he ends and she begins, and he supposes that’s all a man could hope for with a woman like her. When her moans melt away into breathless panting he cannot help himself anymore, and he lowers his hands to her hips, pushing her down against him, pushing himself into her and now he has the sound of her crying out his name, ragged and torn and beautiful. When she comes for him her head drops to his shoulder, and if he wasn’t so familiar with the sounds of her tears he’d think those sobs of ecstasy were those of pain, but he knows her. _Yes, I know you, I know you, Sansa,_ he thinks before he comes with a shuddering grunt, the feel of her teeth biting into him searing into his memory for what he hopes is the rest of his life.

 “There,” she says, several minutes later, spent and limp as a noodle against him as he rests against the headboard. They are still locked in position though he has slipped out of her, and her cheek is pressed to his scarred one, and he doesn’t even care. She can live there, in the wounded parts of him, for as long as she wants, he’ll never complain. He has pulled her hair over her shoulder, away from his face, and he is blissfully running his fingers through it, gazing sightlessly across the room as he relives every moan, every roll of her hips, the very quake of her orgasm that sent shockwaves throughout his body.

“’There,’ what?” he asks, though his words are more a sigh than anything.

“That’s love,” she says, sending a marching army of tingles up his spine, making him close his eyes, and Sansa exhales luxuriously, and he can hear the smile that shapes her words, “and that’s what I needed.”

 

It’s late in the day, likely close to five o’clock in the afternoon when Shireen wakes up, tangled up in Rickon and the sheets of her own bed, the thin, pale light of a mid-autumn sun glowing dully behind her drapes. It’s like being in a fishbowl of muted light, and she feels underwater from staying up so late, feels muzzy from the strangeness of it all. They drank whiskey with Renly until dawn, told him everything that had happened, and when Rickon’s anger resurfaced, having not been completely burned up in the fire, Renly disappeared into the basement, hauled up the old punching bag he used in college for workouts and Rickon attacked it for forty minutes, only stopping to take shots whenever Renly poured them out.

“Thank you,” says a voice from behind her, words and warm breath in her hair, and she closes her eyes, curves her spine to get closer to him and he responds by turning towards her, pressing his bare chest against her shoulder blades as he wraps his arm around her waist. She thinks of late-day sunshine, rumpled sheets and black tea with honey and milk, something she saw in him a while ago, and it makes her burrow beneath the covers even more, makes her pull his arm more snugly around her, earning a tobacco-and-whiskey purr from him.

“For what?” While she is blessedly lucky having escaped the painful clutches of a hangover, and never smoked like Rickon did last night, she sounds as hoarse and as froggy as if she smoked a whole pack.

“Helping me last night,” he murmurs, using his nose to move the hair from the side of his neck, and he nuzzles her there like a sleepy puppy. “Taking me there, handing me bricks; for being you, for being with me and staying with me.  For the fire,” he says, lifting his head to kiss her shoulder, and Shireen closes her eyes, wishes she wasn’t wearing a t-shirt, though the sensation is lazy and sweet and tender enough to send her back to sleep, just as much as it is arousing.

“The fire was all you, buster,” she says with a smile, thinking of how one minute it was bricks and the next it was fire, all from his hand, but then she remembers what he said, who they avenged, that it was less vandalism and more exacting a toll, demanding a price, any kind of price, for what the Lannisters took from him, from her. “Hey um, are you okay? How are you feeling?”

“How am I feeling,” he says back to her, as if he’s not sure how to answer, and the way his voice sounds makes her wonder how many times he’s been asked that in his entire life.  _Not much,_  she thinks sadly, . “Worn out,” he says finally, his arm lifting so he can run his fingers in circles around the cap of her shoulder. “I’m worried about my sister and sad that I can’t help her. I feel lost, and angry, and tired. I feel stuck.”

Shireen speaks to the mattress, back turned to him as it is; she speaks to the sheet and blanket she has fisted in her hand. “Well, I’m glad you’re stuck here with me, at least,” she says, her voice a thin, ragged, lonely thing, and it makes her wince, cringe, close her eyes at the desperate loneliness there, the loneliness that has chased her for her entire life, because he’s talking about his own shit right now, not hers.

“I’m not ‘stuck’ with you, Shireen,” he says after a few beats, and he draws his body, his warmth away from her, pulling her with him so that they might face each other, she on her back looking up as Rickon props himself above her. “I’m not ‘stuck’ as you call it. I’m just here. I’m here because I want to be. Because I want to be with you; hope that’s okay,” he says, looking all the while into her eyes, and it’s Rickon she’s in love with, the whole parcel of him, the good boy and the bad boy and all the gray in between, the sadness in him that rises up to meet the sadness in her, the insecurity, the love, O _h,_  she thinks,  _the love._

“It’s more than okay,” she sighs, and she sees him with her mind’s eye, flinging what looked like balls of fire into Tywin’s office, and though she knows they were only rolls of toilet paper, though she knows they could have gotten into overwhelmingly massive amounts of trouble, there is a wicked part of her that loved the way he looked, like some angry, vengeful demon raining his wrath down on the Lannisters. So when she says  _It’s more than okay, it’s wonderful, please, Rickon,_  and when he pulls her out of that t-shirt and kisses her body and her mouth, when she runs her nails down his back as he thrusts inside her, sleepy but self-possessed, she thinks she can smell smoke, thinks she can taste it on him. His mouth his hot wherever it touches her, and it sets her aflame, whether he presses it to her lips or to her skin. _It’s more than okay, it’s perfect, it’s love, it’s fire and it’s sadness, but it’s love, so_ yes _, it’s okay._

He showers with her when they finally stagger from her bed, and for once she’s grateful for the huge glass-encased shower because there is enough room for them both, though she shivers and huddles under the hot water when it’s just her by herself. He soaps her up with his bare hands, as attentive to her arms and the small of her back as he is her breasts, going so far as to make her laugh when he squats down and washes her feet. She gets to do the same for him, reaching up to run a wash cloth along his shoulders, down the long, lean track of his back, and his head bows in limp, loosened bliss when she slides her soaped up arms around him to wash his chest, and there is a drawn out leisurely kiss when he turns to face her, no anticipation of sex, just enjoyment as they stand pressed together beneath the steady stream of hot water.

He marvels at her figure, which she has always taken care of but never considered much more than a body, having had only one lover before and that being senior year of undergrad when she was 20, and it had been a fumbling, sweet, awkward affair between virgins. But Rickon latches his gaze onto her in such a way that she feels exotic, beautiful, and it makes her head reel more than the whiskey did, last night. They wash their own hair, grinning at each other, discussing what Tywin must have thought when he got the call about the vandalism, wondering how horrible Renly must feel after drinking all night with a couple of twenty-somethings.

“Oh, wow,” Rickon says when they head downstairs with damp hair and bare feet, he in in his clothes from last night while Shireen has on leggings and slouchy, faded old sweatshirt that used to be her father’s. “You look like shit, man.”

“I look like I feel,” Renly growls. He is sitting at the table in the kitchen, hunched over a quesadilla, a cup of coffee by his elbow. His hand appears to be the only thing holding his head up. “I don’t know what I was thinking last night. Or do I say this morning?”

“Serves you right, old man, trying to hang with the young bloods,” Shireen says as she walks past him, getting two mugs down from the cupboard. She fills one with coffee and hands it to a thankful Rickon before boiling water for a cup of English breakfast for herself. “You’ve been drinking like a fish lately, I’ll admit, but not even that could prepare you for daybreak.”

“Go lecture someone who cares, you horrible, horrible niece,” he says, tearing a piece of his oozy, greasy quesadilla, stuffing in unceremoniously into his mouth. “I bet you two feel fine,” he says around the mouthful.

“I’m good,” Shireen says, glancing to Rickon, knowing he must feel just fine, having experienced the very real proof beneath him only an hour earlier. He grins indulgently to her, shrugs to Renly, who is glaring up at him with bloodshot eyes.

“Sorry, man, but I’m great.” Rickon accepts Shireen’s offer to fix him the same as Renly’s having, and soon all three of them are seated and licking their fingers between bites.

“So Rickon, you’re feeling better after all of your unorthodox therapy last night?”

“I guess so,” Rickon says with a smirk, and again the visuals from the previous night dance in Shireen’s head as she remembers the rush of satisfaction to break a window, to throw the eggs, to watch it go up in flames before they raced away from the scene.

“I just wish I could have been there to see it,” Renly says with a sigh, pausing for a long swallow of coffee before standing and carrying his plate to the sink. “I wish I could see the look on that bastard Tywin’s face when he finds out.”

Her uncle drifts out of the room, muttering about ibuprofen, and leaves them to finish their unusual breakfast. Shireen cannot help herself, staring into her mug of tea and cream, and though she tries to bite back her grin, lower lip caught between her teeth, she cannot.

“All pain and misery aside, you were um, you were pretty badass last night,” she says, blowing on her tea before sipping it, and she finally lifts her eyes to his. He’s leaning back in his chair, an arm thrown over the back of it, regarding her, and he looks deeply amused.

“Oh yeah? Got a thing for arsonist armed robbers now, do you?”

“I guess so,” she says, blushing. She feels like a silly girl for mentioning it, but every compliment he sends her way, every kind word, they all go such a long way, and she wants the lost little boy in him to know someone fawns over him. “I reckon I’d have a thing for anything if you’re the one doing it,” and that makes him smile.

“Well,” he says after clearing his throat. “I’ll say this: I don’t think I’m likely to ever forget you launching a brick at that house, screaming your head off. Talk about sexy,” he says, “I should have known you’d have that in you, ever since you let me have it when I first met you,” and it’s that hot look of his that she’s melting under, and his arm drops from the back of the chair as he leans in to her, but then their kiss is interrupted by Renly’s voice, floating down the hall into the kitchen.

“You guys? I think you better come take a look at this,” and they draw back from each other, confusion and concern there between them, and at least for Shireen,  _Oh shit oh shit oh shit_ starts rattling around in her head.

They find him in the den, standing in the center of the room with his coffee and the remote control, watching the local news, and Shireen’s heart leaps into her throat as she sees the footage of firefighters hosing down the charred remains of Tywin’s office, little more now than a couple of exterior walls, the collapsed and crumpled roof.

“Fuck yes,” Rickon whispers. “Fuck. Yes. We burned it down. They couldn’t save it.” And she sees his hands are in fists at his side. She brushes her fingers along his knuckles and his hand immediately uncurls at the touch, fingers stretching out in full so she may slide hers between them, and thus laced together, they stand and listen as the reporter on the scene discusses how there are no suspects, no lingering evidence, how it is a shocking mystery and a startling crime.

“They said before you came in that no one from Lannister Realty gave any comment. Nothing.”

“Fine by me,” Shireen throws out, heart pounding with the relief of not being seen, of not being suspected.

“I know, I know, I’m sure they’re too shocked to say much of anything. That little stunt of y’all’s came out of left field,” Renly says with a grin. He shuts off the remote and turns to them when the news segment ends. “But there’s something else we could do with that silence, I’m thinking.”

“Oh yeah?” Rickon’s jaw is working, but he looks calm enough. “Like what?”

“Someone could maybe call the police station, say it’s funny they made no comment after a fire burned down their office, after their business has been floundering for over a year.” Renly raises his eyebrows. “Anonymous tips, you know, have happened to shed a lot of light on insurance fraud.”

“You wouldn’t,” Shireen breathes, shaking her head at her uncle’s ballsy suggestion. It’s a good idea, even just to throw them under suspicion, even just to give Tywin Lannister a headache. If they’ve done anything else illegal, maybe a tip, even a false one, might shed light on it.

“I don’t know, sugar. Y’all are beating people up and burning down houses. Maybe your old uncle Renly is feeling a little restless,” he says, giving her a pat on the shoulder before heading out of the room. “Now where is that damned Advil?”

“You’re pretty devious, even with a hangover, Ren,” she calls after him, and he waves a hand dismissively over his shoulder.

“There’s no dampening the sun, I don’t care how much whiskey you throw at it.”

 

 

Chapter title taken from Open Me Slowly - Rena Jones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been so excited/nervous to post this chapter so I hope everyone is okay with how SanSan gets together/gets it on. ::bites fingernails::


	15. Stormy Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SANSAAAAN. A poor choice of words spoken in haste. A glimpse in Sandor's past and the gang's future plans.
> 
> I finished writing chapter 19 so I decided to hell with it, have chapter 15, y'all.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115047269113/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-15-stormy-weather)

 

It’s dark when Sansa wakes up again, the hair on the nape of her neck damp with sweat from the warmth of Sandor’s arms, and the feeling of being in his embrace again calls up memories from just hours earlier, and she bites back the moan that wants to slip out. It is a cacophony of sensations she remembers, the shadows of them that she can still feel, how full she was when he was inside her, the aching heat he roused from her with his mouth and his tongue, the sneaking, building, swelling landslide of an orgasm that consumed her. She might keep in her moan but she cannot suppress the little shiver that overtakes her, the smile that creeps in. Sandor made her feel safe and now he has made her feel adored, and that is precisely what she needs.

She is lucky she did not dream of what almost happened to her last night, did not even dream of her parents’ deaths, of visits to the morgue or of how Robb died; those dreams she has had regularly, but last night and this afternoon she dreamed only of Sandor, of the strength in his arms and the gentleness of his hands, the smell of him, the warmth of him, the safety of him. They were amorphous dreams, dreams of the feelings he inspires in her, and the sheer fullness of them kept the demons and the nightmares away, so when she blinks lazily now with his chest as her pillow, feeling the thud of his heart and the rise and fall of his breathing, she is at peace.

“You’re awake,” she says in surprise when his hand lifts off of her shoulder and he brushes her hair with his fingers, lets them skate down her arm before returning to the top of her head. To her delight she’s found he simply can’t keep his hands out of her hair, much as he loves touching the rest of her.

“I am,” he says, and she can both hear and feel the rumble of his voice with her ear pressed to his chest.

“Did you sleep well?” She asks, and he laughs, a deep boom like thunder in a summer storm, something dark and sweet like chocolate to the sound of it, and Sansa wonders how he makes her so hazy and hungry, how his very presence keeps the nightmares away, declaws the terrors, leaves her lounging here, naked and free and smiling with him. She is a buzzing, pleasure-filled sail because of him, where last night she was a drenched and wilted slip of a woman. It is magic, this effect he has on her.

“I slept like a man who knows he’s going to heaven when he dies, if he’s not there already,” he says, and the broad trunk of his body twists slightly as he stretches his arm to flick on the lamp on her nightstand, and they are illuminated in a soft globe of light that does not quite reach the corners of the room. Sansa lifts her head to look at him, finds as usual that he’s already looking at her, and that sends a little flash of something sweet arcing like lightning inside her heart.

“Same here,” she smiles, rolling into him as she turns onto her belly, her right arm folded like a bird’s wing on his chest, her chin resting on the back of her hand. “I have you to thank for it, too, in more ways than one,” she says, explaining her dreams and the lack of nightmares. He tips his head to the side, scars pressed to the pillow as he regards her, frowning with concern.

“How are you doing, love? Are you all right?” He touches her bruised cheek again, so gentle for such a large hand, and she smiles with a nod.

“I’m all right, yeah,” she says, looking down as she runs her other hand across the hair of his chest. “All because of you, because you’re here. Because you came for me and took me away, because you’re- because we- because,” she attempts to find the words and he rescues her again.

“Because of us,” he offers, and she nods. He smiles, another warm one that meets his eyes, sweeps a hand down her naked back, and again she’s reminded of what it means now that they’ve brought themselves together, and the delicious ache in her heart is matched to the one between her legs.  The cause of the latter is evident but the cause of the former is something she has narrowed down to love, because her previous pining has exploded into stars, bright shining things that wink and blink at the very thought of him. _I think I’m in love with him,_ she says to herself, can identify it, now that it has a channel through which to travel, in her kisses and embraces, and one day it will even have her words. But it’s a new fragile thing, and for now she wants to keep it close, tucked safe inside her heart.

“You don’t know what it means to me,” she murmurs, and he hums when she presses a kiss to his chest, and she can feel his heartbeat beneath her mouth, can feel his ribs expand as he breathes in. “What it means to have you here with me,” she says, inhaling the scent of him, the smell of his soap and his skin beneath it, and there is a pressure now when his hands roam the length and breadth of her, a pressure she recognizes as need. But he kisses her with such well-behaved hunger, his tongue a slow slide into her mouth, his hands a steady slide from shoulders to the dip of her lower back, the swell of her rear, kneading the soft flesh there before returning once more to her shoulders, to her hair, to her face.

“Well,” he rumbles between kisses, “I know what it means to _me_ to be here, and I can assure you it means more than anything I can think of.” _He is a world,_ she decides, her tongue in his mouth, one hand in the soft black of his hair, the other hand blazing a dangerous trail down his chest and past his navel _. He is a world separated from this one, and I think I’d like to live there._

He sucks in a sharp breath when she closes her fingers around him, and he turns them both onto their sides, then Sansa onto her back in one smooth movement, something she’d consider an impossibility if she did not already know the strength he possesses. When she uncurls her fingers to embrace him she is careful of his right side, almost shudders to remember the sounds of his body slamming against the door, and though she wants nothing more but to explore him with her hands she simply winds her arms around his neck. Finally, finally, she has Sandor above her, the solid safe weight of him holding her to the mattress, and it makes her whimper, makes her wet, makes her kiss him back with more force than before. He pushes his hips against hers by way of reply and she can feel how hard and eager he is, pressed so sweetly against her, but there is that steadiness, that unbelievable self-control she’d not expect, not after watching him pummel her assailant, not after knowing he’s been behind bars and without a woman for so long.

“Sansa,” he says, a question tangled up in the letters of her name, one she answers by guiding him inside her, and he lets loose a low, guttural sort of sound as he begins to move, and Sansa wonders if she will simply fall apart from how good it feels to be so full of him, to get so lost in him, in the taste of his tongue and the press of his body. “My beautiful girl,” he says, and despite the warmth of him and the fact that she’s already panting, Sansa feels the prickles of goose bumps to hear his words tumble out, to know she is the object of these affections. He calls her his girl, his love, and it’s like he cannot help himself, cannot stop the flood of sweet nothings, and she is close, so close to saying she loves him but then he’s kissing her so hard she can only moan into his mouth. She does, however, manage to cry out his name when she comes, her legs wrapped around him, and he moves his hand to lace his fingers between hers, and she’s pinned by the wrist and the hand to the bed, and it nearly makes her come again to think of herself at his mercy.

“Oh, God,” he says, rising up from his elbows to his hands, one against the wall, the other still gripping hers, and she has full view of him in all his beauty, can run her hands across his pectorals and through his dark chest hair, down the taper of his torso from broad shoulders to nipped in hips where she has him wrapped in her legs. “ _Fuck_ , Sansa.” He looks down at her with the desperate, lost expression of a man on the edge of an orgasm, and she squeezes her thighs, drawing him closer to her, closer to the brink, begging him with her body to throw himself over it and join her. She draws herself tight around him as he fills her once more, and then he shudders with a clenched jaw, snapping his hips hard against hers and then his head jerks back with a final ragged groan before he collapses to his elbows, saving her from the crush of his full weight though she can think of nothing finer than to be so safely pinned, so sweetly confined.

He kisses her again and again though he can hardly catch his breath and she keeps him inside her by virtue of her legs around him, so there he stays until it is a physical impossibility. Still he kisses her, and Sansa can only think _This is love, it has to be because nothing feels so fine._ It’s a small sort of heartbreak to feel the loss of him when he kisses her breasts with a sigh and moves off of her, stretching out beside her on his back, an arm flung over his head against the pillow. With his left hand he lifts hers to his mouth, kisses the back of it with a contented sigh, a mighty rise and fall of his chest as he catches his breath. He is a marvel to her.

“Sandor,” she says after some time, curiosity getting the better of her, and he hums in response, a hoarse, rumbling sound she has already grown to love. “How um, how long has it actually been for you?” She knows from what Rickon said that her brother hasn’t had a girlfriend since the one who broke up with him after he got into all that trouble, and she wonders about Sandor, how he can be so self-possessed when she knows it’s been as long as, if not longer, than his year-long sentence. He is powerful with her, even when he’s gentle as he’s been both times, but a dark, carnal part of her is curious to know just how debilitating he can be. “Sorry, I just, I um... You’re just, you know, I mean, oh hell,” she ends lamely.

“Was I that bad?” He mumbles, and she gasps at her thoughtlessness.

“No! My God, were you even there?” She says, voice raising several octaves out of embarrassment and disbelief; she tells him how she comes more easily with him than she has in her entire life, tells him that she typically requires getting to know someone before feeling comfortable enough to let go, is determined to let him know she does not mock his prowess. But then he’s laughing, the mattress shaking beneath them both from it, and she slaps his shoulder; it’s a light enough strike but there is still the thinnest layer of sweat on him, and it cracks like a whip in the otherwise quiet room.

As if she woke a beast he rolls onto his stomach and rises to his elbows, pulling her close to him with an arm around her waist, and she suppresses a delighted squeal to be so touched by him again, to get a taste of that underlying current. Finally he opens his eyes, looking down at her amidst the shoulder length fall of black hair that hangs down on either side of his face. “It has been five years since I was last with a woman,” he says finally, making her jaw drop, which in turn makes him grin. “And you are worth every second of the wait.”

“Five _years?_ ” She asks, blushing at the compliment, and he nods with a chuckle. “But you, I mean, damn, that’s a _long_ time,” she says for lack of any other kinder way to phrase it, and he laughs again.

“Aye, I reckon it is, but if I can leave _you_ of all women trembling, then I suppose I remembered a thing or two,” and then he is busy dropping languid, teasing kisses along her collarbone, tracing its frame of bone and skin with a fingertip.  He palms one of her breasts, cupping it completely in his large hand, and though he kneads it gently enough, it’s enough to make her breath catch.

“You can’t possibly be ready for more,” she gasps, and he chuckles.

“I’m an old man, my girl; it takes a little longer than a few minutes these days. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t take my time getting to know my way around you, if you’ll let me.” And so Sansa lets him, closing her eyes to focus her attention on his hand on her breast, his mouth on her hardened nipple – and _that_ makes her whimper and arch up, makes her cradle his head to her chest – and how his fingers and his tongue seem to worship whatever he finds as they map out her body. His hand drifts lower and lower, skate a teasing track down her thighs and back before seeking what’s between them, and there is a loud moan in the back of her throat ready to let loose when they hear the sound of the front door opening and the mingling of voices that can only be Shireen and her brother.

Sandor freezes, mutters _Fucking hell_ under his breath, and reluctantly withdraws his hand from between her legs. She opens her eyes to see Sandor checking over his shoulder to make sure the door is closed before he turns back to her, eyes full of denied want. _Not so old after all,_ she thinks with a smile. “I think of your brother as my own but right now I want to throttle him,” Sandor says with a sigh, and she laughs weakly, knees shaking under the weight of an unfulfilled promise, and she is vehemently sure she will  never think of his strong fingers the same way again.

Reality seeps in as they finally, finally get out of bed, having been there for close to twenty hours, and there is sorrow when he opens the door after they dress, after he steps behind her and sweeps her hair away from her shoulder to kiss her there, his arms a loose loop around her waist. She needs to see her brother, to let him know she is all right, but it is kissing something goodbye, saying farewell to this huge, monumental thing that has occurred between them, this bright, shiing thing that helped Sansa to navigate the treacherous way across what happened to her, helped her to emerge relatively unscathed, save for minor damages.

“I don’t want to go out there,” she whispers, thinking fleetingly of being struck, of crashing down to her knees, but it is quickly swallowed by the finer, softer memory of _My beautiful girl,_ of how Sandor drove his fingers between hers, held her hand in his when she came. “I don’t want to leave _here,_ ” she corrects herself, and he turns to her with a small smile, soft even with the gnarl of scars on the one side. _He looked so terrifying the first time I saw him and now all I see is lovelovelove,_ she thinks. He rests a large hand on her hip, and she remembers the cruel way Joff handled her there, gripping her so hard it hurt, and how bizarre a contrast it is, to have this enormous man touch her as gently as if she were made of spun sugar.

“We’ll be back soon enough,” he says quietly, and there are loud sounds in the kitchen, further proof their little bubble has been burst, that the outside world is seeping in. “Whenever you let me, I’ll be here, Sansa. I’ll be by your side whenever you ask.”

“I don’t want to have to ask,” she says, and he grins then, taking her by the hand, drawing her from their little den and into the dark hallway.

“Then you won’t have to.”

 

Rickon is unsure of what to do, once they’re here, because Sandor’s door is open and his room is dark, but Sansa’s is closed and there is a glow from beneath the door, casting a sweep of light down into the hall. He doesn’t want to startle her, not after what happened, but he wants her to know they’re there. He wants her to come out and see him, talk to him, tell him she’s all right.

“What do I do, yell, ‘honey, I’m home’?” he asks Shireen once they’re inside, and Shireen pauses in the threshold to laugh at him, her back against the jamb, eyes closed as she laughs, and he knows he’s about to get made fun of but it’s hard to look away from her, hard not to get caught up in her.

“I think _her_ honey is already home, if you know what I mean,” and now Rickon is disturbed by the unbidden imaginings of his sister having sex. He grimaces, pushing her into the house and out of his way so he can lock the door.

“Jesus, Shireen, you’re the worst,” he says as he locks the door. “So anyways,” he says as they kick their shoes off, his voice louder than usual, “I think I’d like to take you to that movie,” and Shireen laughs at him a second time.

“By golly, Rickon! A date to the picture show!” She says loudly, clasping her hands over her heart, and he makes a face at her, but she just grins with a shake of her head, so he pushes her again with a hand between her shoulder blades. Shireen staggers before turning to shove him right back but Rickon snares her in his arms, pulling her in for a much needed hug and a half-desperate kiss She gives both with such ease and such sweet depth that it makes him think about past lives and entwined fates, makes him wonder if they’ve met before, loved each other before in some other century. “C’mon, honey,” she murmurs when the kiss dies, stepping backwards and dropping her purse onto the sofa table with a familiarity that makes him smile. She walks into the kitchen and he follows her, and together they noisily get the stuff to pour two glasses of wine, trying to casually, aloofly alert his sister and Sandor to their presence.

They left Renly shortly after watching the news, and though she didn’t have to come with him, he’s glad she did, because for some reason seeing his sister without an ally, when she has one in Sandor, seems terribly stacked against him. He doesn’t know what to expect from her, not after she told him to leave her alone, and while he _understands,_ there is still a part of him that smarts from her rejection.Rickon has never before known something like this to happen to either of his sisters, though a dark part of him thinks Arya would be better suited to handle it than Sansa, and he wonders if that is due to the younger sister’s spitfire personality or the fact that he has grown that much closer to his eldest sister over the past two months, is now that much more protective over her than he ever was before.

He can’t find anything appetizing that he can reasonably put together with his limited knowledge, and Shireen has already confessed to being hopeless in the kitchen, so Rickon hoists himself up to sit on the counter and calls Pizza Hut. It’s been a long, long time since he’s has pizza, and that sounds as good a choice as any. Shireen steps between his cocked out knees and drapes herself across one of his thighs, her head resting against his hip and it’s a sweet gesture that has him smiling,  has him playing with her hair as he orders two large pizzas, one with sausage and mushrooms, the other with pepperoni and black olives. He says he’ll pay with cash and when he ends the call he gazes down at Shireen, and then he grins.

“While you’re down there,” he says, yelping and jumping with a laugh when she bites him on the leg, but then they both jerk with surprise when Sandor and his sister materialize in the doorway separating Sandor’s room from the kitchen with a _Hey, guys_ from Sansa. Shireen stands up so suddenly, blushes so furiously, that it takes the attention away from him as he leaps down off the counter, trying to surreptitiously adjust his halfhearted erection before anyone notices.

Rickon smiles briefly down to Shireen, his hands on her upper arms, before he slips past her to go to his sister. He’s nervous, worried she will turn him away, but then she smiles at him, and though she doesn’t cry, doesn’t tremble or waver or hesitate, there is still a wound there, there is still a sadness there that bothers him. He hugs his sister fiercely, and she hugs him back with as much love, to his relief, and when he looks over her shoulder to Sandor, his old cellmate and his friend gives him a curt nod as if to say _She’s all right, I looked after her._ Rickon’s happy for it, but he has only been the caretaker of his sister’s well-being for two months, and it stings somewhat to have the title so quickly removed.

“You okay, San?” He asks when they pull apart, and she smiles shyly, tucking herself against Sandor, whose arm was already half lifted in anticipation of draping it around her.  She nods, smile widening.

“I’m okay. I really am, I promise,” she says with a wavering sigh. “I’m tired, and it was um, it was _fucking_ horrible, but it’s over, and I’m safe and sound and out of there, and I don’t have to go back.” She’s tall, taller than Shireen and in high heels is as tall as he is, and her posture from ballet is impeccable, but now she’s small against Sandor, small without her lick of flaming hair, small from her ordeal, small in this room, and it is so distracting that he does not at first hear her words. It takes a few moments, but then reality descends, cuts through the fog, stills his breathing.

“But wait,” he says, his voice thin and wheedling like a boy’s, because he cannot help himself. He feels everything falling down around him, and his blood pumps and pounds in his ears. “We _have_ to go back, we haven’t even _done_ anything, we haven’t gotten anywhere. You’re really not going back, Sansa?” The second the question leaves his mouth, the despair in his heart is overcome with disappointment in himself, and he regrets the words even manifesting in his brain, let alone leaving his mouth. He tries to say so, tries to take away the expression of hurt on his sister’s face, but Sandor pushes him back a few feet with a single, powerful shove to his chest.

“Like hell she’s going back, you daft prick, and I’ll stop the person who tries to make her, one way or another. That goes for you, too.”

“Sandor, stop it,” Sansa starts to say just as Shireen says “Can’t we all just calm down?” but Rickon and Sandor ignore them, and now they’re circling each other. Rickon feels like he’s back in high school or back in the prison yard, though he never thought it’d be Sandor squaring off with him.

“I was talking to my sister, goddammit, not you _,_ ” he says roughly, curling his hands into fists. “It’s none of your fucking business.”

“It became my business when I broke down a door to get to _your_ _sister_ before she got raped,” Sandor says, and then he sneers, a face Rickon has seen him give to others but never to him. “You were too busy fucking your girlfriend to do much of--”

“Fuck you,” Rickon says as he hits him in the face with a well-timed punch, dodging the follow up, and he’s utterly grateful for his speed when he registers just how pissed off Sandor is. He ducks and dodges, does well enough until he’s trapped between Sandor’s fists and the fridge pressed against his back, and then Rickon is felled with a crack of knuckles to his cheek, slumps like a rag doll to the floor where he wallows in the smell and taste of blood from his bitten tongue, the sounds of his sister shouting for Sandor to stop, and the sight of the huge, scarred man placing his feet on either side of Rickon’s legs, stooping with his fist pulled back, and Rickon flinches in preparation for another hideous blow.

“You stop right there, motherfucker,” Shireen snarls, running in from the dining room. She slides to a stop in her stocking feet, turns and stands over Rickon’s body, a mother lion protecting her cub as she faces Sandor with what looks like, from his shitty vantage point on the floor a small bottle of hairspray attached to her keychain. _Who has hairspray on a keychain?_ He wonders, watching in a daze as his girlfriend defends him, a mouse against a bear. “You stop it right now, or I’m gonna mace you six ways from Sunday,” she finishes, making Rickon think _Ah, pepper spray, good girl,_ and she brandishes the little canister inches from Sandor’s face. There is a tense moment as Sansa pulls on Sandor’s arm, trying to push down the fist he has aimed at the ready, but then the larger man sneers, and he can hear how everyone seems to be breathing hard. Finally Sandor says _Suit yourself, you wee shit,_ and then it’s just the two of them in the kitchen when Sandor steps over Rickon and storms out of the kitchen to the back patio, Sansa murmuring _Sorry, bub_ before following him.

Shireen drops the can of mace and her keys as she turns, sinking onto his hips as if she means to make love to him instead of inspect his wounds. She braces a hand against the floor and leans over him, her hair a waterfall of chocolate on either side of her face, and she bites her lip and winces as she looks at his face, and he flinches in pain when she lightly touches his cheekbone.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” he says, and she just clicks her tongue and shakes her head, but he lifts a hand to pull her down to him. “I’m serious, Shir. He could have, and probably would have, beaten the shit out of me. You saved me,” he smiles, and he can tell she’s smiling too by the way her mouth curves against his when he kisses her with closed lips, once, twice, before breaking away. There is blood in his mouth, and he’ll not inflict that upon her.

 “He broke the skin, you’re bleeding. Must’ve been one hell of a punch,” she murmurs when she draws back to inspect him further, his shining knight and his nurse in one fell swoop.

“I gotta stop making friends who hit me,” Rickon says, and she chuckles, getting to her feet and helping him to his. Shireen grabs a paper towel, runs it under the cold tap and cleans him up with it, and while he’s perfectly capable of doing this himself, while he’s done this a thousand times before in his life, he lets her because it seems to make them both happy, because no one has been so doting on him, not since he was a kid. Rickon spits a gob of bloody saliva in the sink and rinses it away, the plume of red disappearing down the drain like all of their plans.

“Honey, why did you even go there, though? I know this means a lot to you but Sansa, holy shit, Rickon. She could have been raped, or worse.” She is not critical when she says it, she is not harsh, and for that he’s grateful, considering how big of an ass he feels. Rickon sighs.

“I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have said it, and I need to apologize to her. It just sort of came out of me. I’m just- Like what are we going to do now? Yeah, Joff got his ass kicked and we screwed up Tywin’s place, but it all seems so petty, compared to my folks and brother getting murdered. And then there’s Robert, too. Why do they always win?” He shakes his head bitterly, leaning his elbows on the edge of the sink as Shireen rubs his back, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “The bad guys always win and the good guys always suffer. I mean, they even one upped us by attacking Sansa now, too. Four Starks fallen victim to the Lannisters, and we have nothing to show for it. Nothing at all,” he says. Rickon spits again into the sink but the blood in his mouth is gone now, and he supposes so is the fight.

 

“Look, I know you were defending me back there, but you can’t just snap like that. You can’t just hit my brother,” Sansa says, and while there is no anger in her voice, not really, there is a firmness to it, because she comes to the defense of her brother, and Sandor cannot believe he actually raised his fist against Rickon. “Here, you need another one,” she says, tearing off a square of the paper towel she managed to snatch before following him outside.

“Thanks,” he mutters, wadding it up and shoving it into his left nostril after removing the old, blood-soaked one.

They are sitting at a large, sun-bleached wooden table on the patio, in two of the seven mismatched wooden chairs that are in various stages of being pushed in, as if the occupants just left dinner five minutes ago, though he knows that is impossible. _Three of them dead, and you’re punching the youngest like some great big bully._ He closes his eyes and shakes his head, wishing he could turn back the clock and stop himself.

“What happened back there, Sandor? I saw you, and you had murder in your eyes. It made me um, well, it made me wonder if you’ve ever done that before. If you’ve ever taken it that far,” and now there is unease in her voice, and that makes him look up at her from where he is, hunched over in his chair, arms braced on his thighs as he stares at the bricks beneath his feet. She’s wrapped up in a long knobbly sweater, hugging herself in the chill, elbows on her knees, and he eyes are warm but concerned, and it breaks his heart to see it.

“No, never,” he says vehemently. “Look, I’m sorry, I truly am. I should never have hit him. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve lost my temper, I should have known better, after everything.”

“’After everything,’ what?” She asks. She has never prodded him, never asked what he was in for, or about anything, really, that he did not first volunteer, and he’s been grateful, but now is not the time for omissions. Sandor grabs hold of his chair and scoots it forward, and he is relieved when she lets him take her hand in his, and he turns it over, traces the lines of her palm with his finger, marveling at how long and slender her fingers are, remembering how it felt to have those fingers clinging to his back only a short time ago.

“I’ve been an angry, angry man for most of my life, Sansa, all stemming back to my- to the fire. The fire that took my parents and my sister,” he says, and she gasps at the admission, as he pulls out the wad of paper towel from his nose, and when he winces he’s not sure if it’s the lingering pain from Rickon’s punch or the memories of his baby sister. He gets up and throws the bloodied paper towels into the garbage bin, notes that it’s nearly full and that he should haul it to the street before going to bed.

“You had a sister?” She asks when he sits back down, taking her hand in his once more. He can see the pain in her expression, and it makes his heart bleed to know that it’s pain on his behalf, that there’s enough love and caring in her to parcel some for him, even now after her parents, her brother and her close call with Joff. There is room still for him, and he hopes to spend the rest of his days earning it.

“Aye, I did,” he nods. “Just a wee thing, and I pray to God the smoke took her before the flames did. It was a house fire, set by my- by Gregor, my older brother. He killed them all, and left me for dead though all I got was this,” he says, waving his free hand to his face, and she murmurs _Sandor_ , making his name sound like a song, but he shakes his head. Sandor tells her how it was in foster care after his grandparents died, how the scars didn’t make him any friends, didn’t help him find a new home, and how his anger grew and grew, fat like a gourd on a vine. He tells her about the arrests, the violence, the anger, and finally he tells her about the seedy bar where he beat two men to shit just for the hell of it, stole a car and crashed it into a Goodwill before the cops found him, covered in blood and staggering around the store, wiping his bloodied face on t-shirts.

“Oh my God, were you hurt?” She asks, and he laughs despite the seriousness of the conversion, lifts her hand to his mouth so he can kiss it, and the fine bones and tendons there are like artwork to him.

“Is it me the one always looking out for you or the other way round?” He asks with a sad smile, and she smiles back, turns her hand over in his to push her fingers between his.

“Maybe it’s both,” she says, and he decides to accept that, to let it keep him warm at night.

“No, love, I wasn’t hurt. The booze kept me loose and limber, but it also helped increase my sentence, though my good behavior got it lowered, eventually, to just the year. There’s where I met Elder Brother, the old chaplain at the DOC. Lot of therapy with that man, group and individual, and he helped me with my temper. Helped me recognize it’s all because of Gregor, really, what he took from me, what he gave me, and that each time I lose my cool, it gives Gregor more power.”

“Is he- is Gregor still alive?”

“No, thank God. He killed himself with drugs, lots of them. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands, spent a lot of time wishing I had, but Elder Brother told me that was a waste, too, so I let it go. If I keep my head, if I keep my temper in check, it’s a way to forget my brother, to forget the fire. I’ve gotten good at it, the self-control, really I have, if you can believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” she says, and there’s a naughty little smile on her face when he looks up at her again. “Let’s just say I’ve experienced some of that control,” and he thinks he might be blushing.

“Come here, lass,” he murmurs, tugging on her hand, and she comes willingly into his arms as he sits back in the chair, sits on his thigh and lets her legs drape over the arm of the chair. Sandor takes a moment to choose his words, because what he wants to say is important. “It’s been easy to master myself because I’ve not had anything, not since my family, that’s been worth it to lose control over,” he says, closing his eyes as she runs her fingers through his hair. “Not since that fire, not since he took everything I loved and turned it to ash. And the thought, in there, in that kitchen, of Rickon sending you back into the lion’s den, back into that bastard’s reach made my blood boil. I snapped, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry Sansa, it won’t happen again.”

He tilts his head back to look up at her, perched as she is on his lap, and she cups his face in her hands and kisses him, and it feels like someone is pulling on his heart by a string, and he thinks of the string as her, that he’s all tied up in her and happier for it.

“It’s okay,” she says after she breaks the kiss. “It’s okay. But remember I can fend for myself. Not always,” she adds hastily when he opens his eyes and his mouth to argue, considering what she just went through. “But most of the time, I can handle it. Especially when it comes to my baby brother, okay?”

Sandor sighs and nods. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll back off. You’re the boss,” he says with a smile, because it’s truer than she can possibly know. Sansa beams at him, and he thinks _well, maybe she does._

“Now,” she says, all business, softness gone. “I really think you should go apolo-” Sansa is cut off as one of the French doors swings open, and it’s Rickon standing there, tall and lanky as a scarecrow as he rests his forearm against the door frame and leans against it.

“I ordered pizzas and they’re here,” he says to his sister who nods and climbs out of Sandor’s lap, waits as he himself stands up, and then she and Rickon stand together in the doorway. He lingers by the table, giving them privacy, and brother and sister bend their heads together as he talks and she listens, and then they hug each other tightly, and once more Sandor feels disappointed in himself for stepping between them, for thinking it is his place to do so. _She’s the boss of her life,_ he reminds himself. _Boss of yours too, from how it’s looking to turn out._ Their hug over, Rickon nods to something else Sansa says, his eyes flicking from her to Sandor, and he curses inwardly, hoping there won’t be another fight, but he heads up to the back door anyways.

“Thanks, Ric,” Sansa says as she brushes past him to go inside, resting her hand briefly on her brother’s shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen, and then he hears the high, soft voices of women as they talk, and he is confident they’re talking about their brief dog fight in the kitchen. Sandor is right behind her, close enough to see the swelling and cut on Rickon’s left cheek, can even smell the hot doughy scent and the spice of pepperoni.

“Oh, so you’re hungry too, huh, asshole?” Rickon quips and Sandor snorts a laugh at the nerve of this kid, and he can taste blood in the back of his throat, and that makes him sigh, turns him to sober regret.

“Look, mate,” he says, stopping just before the doorway that Rickon seems to be guarding, and the younger man stands straight, folding his arms across his chest, waiting for Sandor to go on. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it that far. I lost my temper, and I know better.” Rickon shakes his head, though, and stands with his back against the door to let Sandor pass.

 “I’m sorry I hit you. I _know_ I shouldn’t have said what I did, it was uncalled for, and stupid. Of course I don’t want her going back there, any more than you do.”

“We’ve got that in common,” Sandor says. Now it’s Rickon’s turn to chuckle, and Sandor is equal parts relieved and surprised when he breaks into a sudden grin and slaps Sandor on the back.

“Look man, I’m happy you’re so willing to beat dudes up for my sister, but just, next time, don’t make it be me, okay? You punch a _lot_ harder when you’re actually pissed off.”

“So do you, you shit,” he says, and Rickon laughs as he locks the back door.

They’re all seated in the dining room, drinking red wine and eating pizza, and it strikes Sandor with wild hilarity that this is his new family, the first he’s had since his grandparents died; the feisty little firecracker who nearly maced him, his friend from prison and his gorgeous sister who wants to share her bed and her heart with him. He chews his mouthful of pizza, contemplatively albeit amusedly, remembers when it was just him, and maybe his only other mate Bronn, who was kind enough to let him crash on his couch, was good enough to watch over his beat up old truck, and then something strikes him.

“You know,” he says slowly, wiping his hands on a paper towel before washing down his pizza with a swallow of wine. “It’s not all over, I don’t think. The plan I mean,” and that has everyone’s attention. Rickon loses his grip on his slice of pizza and it flops down onto his plate, but he just stares across the table at Sandor, food forgotten. “I’ve got this friend, and he and his woman do the sorts of things that could be helpful in a situation like the one we have. They don’t do it for free though, so we’d need some money. A few thousand, I think.”

“Is he a _hit man_?” Shireen asks right as Sansa gasps “Is she a _prostitute?”_ And the scandalized looks of intrigue on their faces makes Sandor bark out a laugh. He shakes his head, reaching to the open box in the center of the table to grab a slice of sausage and mushroom.

“No, they’re con artists,” he says, grinning as Sansa and Shireen both go _Oooh_ at the same time.

“But how do we know they wouldn’t con us?” Shireen asks, licking the grease from her fingers before grabbing her wine glass. It is beyond funny to Sandor that not an hour earlier he and Rickon were fighting and Shireen was threatening him with her mace. Now they sit chatting as if it never happened, and Sandor thinks _Ah, that’s what makes it family._

He shrugs. “They’ve got that Robin Hood shit going for them. They’re conmen with hearts of gold. Plus I trust them.”

“What would they do?” Rickon asks, shaking his head. “I mean, we still have nothing to go on. We have _zero_ information on them, and aside from burning down Tywin Lannister’s office, have made no move that hasn’t backfired on us.”

“You did _what_?” Sandor asks, and he is momentarily swallowed by the vision and memory of licks of flame, the searing pain, the scorch of smoke in his throat, and Rickon and Shireen are talking over each other as they explain, but then Sansa gasps and grabs her brother’s arm and Sandor’s at the same time, her jaw dropped, her eyes wide as she stares across the table at Shireen, who shakes her head in confusion.

“What? What is it?” Shireen asks.

“Oh my God,” Sansa says, and her stunned expression slowly shifts into a crafty one, her mouth closing as a delighted, wicked grin blossoms there like nightshade. “You guys, I just remembered. I think, I don’t know, I must have blocked it out, blocked out most of what J- what _he_ said to me before it all went to hell. But I think we might have something, and I think it might be a big something.”

“What? What, goddammit, what?” Rickon says, sitting up in his chair, leaning over the table towards his sister, who turns her head slowly to regard her brother.

“Joff was drunk and was going on and on about this tapestry of the Battle of Castamere, and he said his mother loves it, names everything Castamere, even like, this fish in their pond.”

“So what, we know the name of the family pet?” Rickon says testily, and Sandor glares at him before reminding himself that the first fight they’ve ever had is still fresh on their faces.

“No, dummy, he _also_ said she uses it for her passwords. Passwords, Rickon. We could, I don’t know, break into her email or something.”

“That’s great, San, but how would we even plug it in, or whatever? We don’t know her email address, and even if she has a work one on the Lannister Realty website, we don’t have her personal email.”

“Oh, yes we do,” says Shireen, and she’s sly as a fox when everyone looks at her. “I know it. I used to be family, remember?”

 

 

Chapter title taken from Stormy Weather - The Pixies


	16. Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Retail therapy. Introductions. Sandor evens the score. 
> 
> HAY GUISE! I have a wedding to attend tomorrow as the mother of the flower girl so since I won't be able to get this out tomorrow, I wanted to post it today.
> 
>    
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115049137623/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-16-team)

“Oh, I like that one, that’s cute,” Sansa points to a top hanging behind Shireen, and she looks in the mirror as she holds the silk blouse up against her chest, the hanger a cold press to her throat, and turns slightly to the left and the right. It _is_ cute, emerald green with slashes in the cap sleeves that are tied back together on the cuffs with loose knots, and the deep V neck is sexy enough to offset any over-the-top cutesiness. She nods and drapes it over her arm and browses to the next rack. “Anyways,” Sansa says, drifting towards her, a conspiratorial look on her face. “He said he’s been, you know,” she says, holding her hand up, miming a cutting pair of scissors. Shireen stares, confused for a moment, before going _Oh!_

“Damn. So he got a vasec- sorry,” she says when Sansa glares at her, jerking her head towards the girl behind the counter. Festivity is a small store, and their words are easy to pick up on; the rain outside has driven most of the window shoppers away, and Sansa and Shireen are alone in the little boutique. “Okay, so, does that like, change things for you?”

 “I don’t know, you know. It’s just so early. I did always think of myself having kids, though,” she says, voice distant, and she picks up a pair of $200 jeans before blanching at the cost and hanging them back up. “But I don’t know anymore. Since mom and dad died, everything’s changed. The way I look at everything is all different now, and the idea of wanting the same future the old me wanted is like trying on shoes that just don’t fit anymore.”

“And clearly the thought of no kids in the future hasn’t kept you away from his bed,” Shireen whispers, and Sansa feigns shock at her audacity before smiling. They haven’t hung out in several days but they text each other frequently now; Shireen knows all about how they fell in together after what happened at Joff’s, and while the circumstances under which it occurred are less than appealing, she is still happy for her friends. She remembers Sandor’s despair on the front porch after their fight, how Sansa was unaware, at least consciously, of his affections. It makes her smile.

“No, it hasn’t,” Sansa murmurs. “I feel safe with him, amongst _other_ things,” she says slyly, referencing the past two weeks since Sandor and Rickon’s fight, since Sandor mentioned his old friends who could help, two weeks that were as full of love in the air as they were heated arguments about what to do with Cersei’s password, or what is most likely her password. They are none of them computer whizzes, but even they know how easy it is to find out if someone has logged into your email from another IP address. They have gone back and forth between whether or not to just say fuck it and do it from someplace public that she might have visited – “I have never known her to step foot into a public library, let alone have the condescension to touch anything there,” Shireen pointed out – or to try and break into her own house, or, as Rickon reluctantly offered, maybe he could break into her car if her laptop was inside, to which all three of them shouted _NO._

 “Well, a vasect- I mean, a you-know-what, that at least simplifies the process when y’all hop into bed,” she says, making Sansa laugh and nod, and she is for one grateful she’s been on the pill since she was eighteen. “Plus you know, it doesn’t mean no kids, either” Shireen says, moving on to the sunglasses set out on a mirrored tray. “They can be reversible, I’ve heard. At least I think I’ve heard.”

“It can be, but it’s not easy,” Sansa says, and she’s hung around her long enough now to hear the embarrassment in her voice, no matter how intently she studies that sweater dress.

“Someone’s been googling, I see,” Shireen says lightly, trying on a pair of sunglasses, making a funny face to Sansa when she gasps at being found out. “And hey, there’s always adoption. There’re plenty of babies in this world that need moms and dads.”

“Oh my God, would you just stop it? That is light years away. We have been together for not even, jeez, not even a month and we’re talking reversible you-know-what’s and adoption. Besides, he’s got a record,” she whispers, side-eying the shop girl, but when Shireen looks she sees the woman is simultaneously chatting on the work phone while texting on her cell. “I don’t know if they let ex-cons adopt children,” Sansa says, and for the first time since Shireen has known her there is a tinge of sorrow when speaking of Sandor’s past, and it makes her think of Rickon.

She’s in love with him. It didn’t take long, but whenever she picks up the feeling she has for him, inspects it and scrutinizes it, the only definition for it is love, and she has absolutely no regrets, but this conversation makes her wonder what lies ahead by way of stop signs, road blocks and diversions. It must read clear on her face, even with the shades on, because when she takes them off and sets them down, Sansa links her arm through hers, gives her elbow a squeeze.

“They’re still good men,” she murmurs. “Whatever happens, however long it lasts for either of us, I don’t think you or I have made mistakes, do you?” Shireen smiles, shaking her head because calling what she has with Rickon a mistake is out of the question, and lets Sansa steer her to the back of the store.

“Come on, let’s try these on. They’ll be texting us any moment, and you know how antsy they both are,” she says. It’s true; it’s taken two weeks to pin down this Bronn and Margaery, and finally they are all going to meet up in the Dragon Park off Blakemore this afternoon to discuss everything, though why it has to be an outdoor park on a rainy day, Shireen will never know. She supposes con artists like to do things the sneaky spy way, or maybe Sandor doesn’t want them to know where he and the Starks live. She wonders if she can hold her own up against them, but then, it’s Renly’s and her money that will fund their efforts, so she supposes she must.

She tries on two tops and a pair of jeggings she picked out while Sansa tries on a dress and two skirts, and they complain good-naturedly about how this fits or that fits, and laugh when they each of them decide to buy all three pieces.

“I bet you guys have a pretty great employee discount,” Sansa says wistfully to the girl behind the counter, and the cashier snaps her gum cheerfully with a nod.

“You bet. Saw you checking out those jeans. I’d get 30% off if I wanted them,” and Sansa’s jaw drops. “We’ll probably be needing some extra help for the holidays, if you want to fill out an application. I mean, _clearly_ you have great taste,” she says, nodding to the small pile of clothes the two of them deposited on the counter, and while she smiles politely enough to Shireen, it is Sansa who receives the job application while Shireen only gets her receipt. _It’s every day, it’s everywhere, but fuck if it still doesn’t hurt like hell,_ she thinks, smiling tightly to the cashier before taking her bag and walking away.

She checks her phone by the door for texts while Sansa fills out the application, and she scrolls through past messages from Rickon when she doesn’t find any new ones. It’s been a handful of days since she’s seen him due to an increase in his hours at the moving company, and she has been spending her time with Renly as they do a little plotting of their own. It cheers her to reread them, his _I miss you honey’s_ and the suggestive ones as much as the ones filled with a confusing myriad of emoji, to which he’s taken an interest in ever since she showed him what they were. He sends her mostly animals and little pictures of fast food, but they make her laugh and that’s all she needs right now.

“Sorry about that,” Sansa whispers when she approaches. “I just need a job and if I can get one that can help me afford $200 jeans, I’m taking it.”

“Oh my God, don’t apologize on my account,” she says as they huddle together under her umbrella, walking with linked arms back to her car. “If you boycotted every place that gave me a double take or ignored me, you’d never leave the house,” she says, trying to crack a joke.

“Like you?” Sansa says gently once they’re high and dry in her Jeep, and Shireen is left to double take at her. “Rickon told me, hon. He thinks you need to get out more, and I think I agree. Sandor, he talks about it sometimes, dealing with people in public. You just have to ignore them.”

“Easier said than done,” she says, starting the car and easing into the sparse traffic. “So, I’m assuming Sandor’s seen the new hair?” Shireen pulled an old trick out of her hat, told her friend to use crushed vitamin C to get the last of the brown out, and as of this morning Sansa’s hair was back to her dazzling auburn shade.

“Yes, yes he has,” Sansa says, looking with immense interest out the window at the gray and drizzly day, as if it were fields of poppies they drove past and not houses and store fronts. Shireen smirks; he probably dragged her right out of the shower into the bed, but before she has a chance to persuade her friend into sharing details, their phones buzz simultaneously with texts that, as it turns out when Sansa checks both, are identical messages: Meet us in 10.

“Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” Sansa mutters, and they both laugh.

The rain is little more than a misty drizzle by the time they make the short drive to the park, in the center of which the serpentine body of large mosaic dragon seems to dive in and out of the ground. Shireen parks next to Sandor’s truck, does not miss that Sansa smiles to see it. _The sight of his stupid truck has her grinning like a lovestruck teenager,_ she thinks, but then she remembers how the sound of Rickon’s bike in her driveway makes her heart race, and suddenly she’s grinning too.

“I used to play here all the time as a girl,” Sansa says, buttoning up her jacket, and Shireen follows suit with her pea coat. It’s chilly and it’s wet and it’s dreary, and she wants nothing more than to get this over with and curl up with Rickon on his couch. She thinks of blankets and wine and kissing him, and once more she cannot get over how badly she’s missed him.

“Same here,” she smiles, though to keep the conversation in the right direction, she neglects to say that the visits stopped after her chicken pox, after the stares and whispers that made her mother grab her firmly by the hand and turn around for the car.

While the rain has for the most part abated, it’s still deserted, save for four people. The three men are all huddled in what looks like a little plastic turret under one a roof on the playground portion of the park, but there is a woman sitting astride the dragon’s back, rain be damned, on one of the arches, and she’s resting her folded arms and chin on the great scale jutting up from the sculpture’s back.

“How’d she even get up there? I never could,” Sansa murmurs.

“With _those_ long legs of yours? I’m as mystified as you are,” Shireen chuckles, opening her car door.

 “Hey,” Sansa says, resting a hand on Shireen’s arm. “Are you um, are you sure about this? I don’t want you getting into trouble, and I don’t want you finding yourself in the same situation I did a couple of weeks ago. I just, I feel like someone needs to say that, you know. I want to support you, but Shireen, these Lannisters play _dirty._ ”

“Believe me, I know. I appreciate it but yes, I’m sure. Pay to play,” she says, tapping her pocket where the envelope of cash sits, warm and dry. It’s $2,000 of Baratheon cash, most of it Renly’s, but there’s $500 that’s all hers, because she’s in it to win it and refuses defeat. “Besides, I need you on my side,” she says, opening her door and grabbing her umbrella. “I expect a full on shit storm from Rickon when I tell him.”

 

He hasn’t seen in her in days, and he’s practically bouncing on the balls of his feet when she hops out of the Jeep, wearing galoshes and a little flowery skirt with black leggings, and he’s grinning like an idiot when she and his sister, arms linked like school girls, trot through the rain towards them. Rickon ignores Sandor’s chortle at his eagerness, because _he_ has nothing to complain about after weeks of sleeping next to his sister every night, and jumps off the raised platform of the playground onto the soft rubbery surface below, ignoring the steps altogether in order to reach her quicker.

His sister rolls her eyes with a smile when he approaches and unwinds her arm from Shireen, pulling her jacket’s hood over her hair as she hurries through the drizzle to where Sandor and Bronn wait, and they are together at last, alone beneath the wide protection of her umbrella.

“You look like the girl on the salt canister,” he says with a grin, fingering the short hem of her dress, and she laughs that husky, throaty laugh he’s known since nearly the second they first spoke. “Although I never wanted to bang the salt girl,” he adds, and she laughs again, hands him the umbrella so she can reach up and wind her arms around him, and nothing feels as fine as the weight of her around his shoulders. He bows his head to kiss her, wrapping his free arm around her waist, and even as the rain starts up again, they stay there in their little world, no bigger than the circumference of her umbrella, Shireen on her tiptoes and Rickon half-holding her up as they press together, show how badly they missed one another.

“Can I sleep over tonight?” She asks between kisses, her clever tongue shaping the words before he occupies it with other things, and he does not answer, only nods, and they are busy for several more moments, wrapped up as they are in one another, before someone wolf whistles. Shireen breaks free and laughs, breathless, and it stokes in him the desire to truly make her gasp for breath, and that makes him grit his teeth.

“Young love,” says a woman’s voice, and they look over in time to see the woman hop expertly down from the arch of the dragon’s back, landing neatly before standing and walking towards them. He was told this was Margaery, since she was already settled on her perch by the time Sandor and he arrived, so this is the first he’s seen of her up close.

She is beautiful and clever looking, reminding Rickon of grinning foxes, with rain damp blonde hair and a twist to her smile that makes him think there is some massive secret that fuels the world and this woman knows about it, if she did not make it up herself. Instinctively, because there is an underlying danger to her as well, he tightens his muscles and draws Shireen closer to him.

“Hi,” she says first to Shireen, holding out her hand. “I’m Margaery, but you can just call me M. Aren’t y’all just loving this weather?” They shake hands, and Shireen smiles genuinely at her, introducing herself, before Margaery, or M, turns to Rickon and offers her hand as well.

“Rickon,” he says. “So, M huh, like Agent M?” She laughs at that, shaking her head.

“No, as in half the people mispronounce it and the other half can’t spell it, and it gets annoying after a while, not being understood, don’t you agree?” She looks at Shireen when she says it, and he feels in his girlfriend’s shoulders something soften, and he can practically hear her sigh with relief because if anyone gets misunderstood it is her.

“Any day now, woman,” calls a voice Rickon now recognizes as Bronn’s, and Margaery rolls her eyes with that curving grin of hers, and nods to where the other three stand on the playground equipment that snakes in cheerful labyrinthine chaos four feet above the playground floor.

“Let’s not keep the grouch waiting, huh? It’s only four pm, and he’s such an old man already he’ll be wanting dinner after this,” she has a familiar way of speaking that sets even Rickon at ease after a few moments, and the usually mistrusting, skeptical Shireen is already chatting with her as they cross the park to the playground.

“You look like a drowned rat, darlin’,” Bronn says cheerfully when Margaery takes the stairs up to him, and despite the less than complimentary comment she slides against his body in the space he provides by lifting his arm.

“Just trying to level the playing field, sugar,” she says sweetly, kissing his cheek as he grins. And while it’s true that Bronn is older than she is, with a heavy jaw and unreadable features, there is something about them that makes sense, and Rickon feels he is in the fox’s den, once they all six are there, Shireen shaking her umbrella before closing it and stepping fully beneath the plastic roof above them.

 “Bronn, this is Shireen,” Margaery introduces, and after they shake hands there is a moment of silence, and Rickon stands beside Shireen, looking back and forth between Bronn and Margaery, until finally Sandor speaks up.

“Just to get everyone on the same page, they know the nature of what may or may not be needed, but they do not know the details. I figured I would leave it to a Stark to share those.” Sandor, formidable even in just his plain car coat and jeans, is standing against a supporting post with Sansa leaning against his chest, and even though they’ve tucked themselves against the periphery of the little octagonal platform, it is still close, and soon the chill from the day seems to edge off from the warmth and humidity of six bodies in such a small space.

“Okay,” Rickon says, and he looks to his sister pointedly, who frowns at him, but then sighs. “You’ve been there from the beginning, San, and considering what Joff did to you, you know, I think you should be the one to tell.”

“And leave nothing out; they’re good with secrets, probably that’s what they’re best at,” Sandor adds dryly, and Bronn beams appreciatively at him.

“What did this Joff do to you?” Margaery’s relaxed, rolling voice is sharp now, and she sticks her gaze onto Sansa like a pin into a shadowbox butterfly. Sansa shrinks back, ever so slightly, into Sandor; his hands on her hips lift and he wraps his arms protectively around her waist. Rickon watches as this simple gesture seems to calm her down, and it makes him reach out for Shireen’s hand, to clasp it, and when he glances down to her she’s already smiling up at him.

“Okay,” Sansa sighs, and for the next ten minutes she tells them everything, starting with the phone call she received one morning in Point Loma informing her that her parents were dead and needed identifying, that her brother Robb was in the hospital in a coma. She talks of Rickon being in prison, which makes him tuck his chin until Shireen nudges her shoulder into his arm and shakes her head at him. She talks of how Robb died when she was all alone, how his last words were Lannisters and ‘call Renly’ and how that’s where the Baratheons came in. Sansa passes the story on Shireen, who briefly goes into Robert’s death and the threats to Renly, which in turn ended in the death of the Starks. There is a short-lived moment where all four of them interject here and there over details about tricking Joff into hiring Sandor, and then all fall silent as they get to the point of his attack on Sansa, and his sister bites her lip and stares over Shireen’s shoulder into nothingness.

“Do you want me to tell them,” Sandor asks her, a soft muffle against the hair by her ear that they can all barely make out, “or are you okay?” Sansa closes her eyes at the sound of his voice, and _Jesus, he really is her rock, isn’t he?_ Rickon says to himself with no small amount of wonder, and not for the first time is he happy to have Sandor Clegane in their lives.

“I’m okay,” Sansa says, though it is clear as day that she does not want to talk of it. But she does, and Rickon is proud of her, reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder, and she smiles at him despite the recounting of events. Shireen nudges him again and he looks down, sees her tip her head ever so slightly towards Margaery, and when he lifts his eyes to the older woman, there is murder in her eyes. She remained neutral up until this point, but it is clear that this part of Sansa’s account has her blood boiling.

“So, that’s why I called you,” Sandor says once Sansa is finished, chewing the inside of her lip as she stares at Sandor’s forearms that are crossed over her ribs. “We’ve all become too recognizable, but we can’t give up, not now.” Sandor glances to Rickon, and they share a determined, curt nod.

Bronn has listened with his arm slung over Margaery’s shoulders and his other hand in his coat pocket, head bowed, nodding occasionally, and now he lifts his head. “This is doable. We can tail the woman to start,” he says, but Margaery shakes her head with a firm _No_. It’s a testament to Bronn’s affections for her that he does not seem annoyed in the slightest to be interrupted, that he looks down with interest to hear what she has to say.

“If you want to go after the mother, be my guest,” she says, eyes burning as she studies Sansa. “But I’m going after Joff. I don’t care what you others do, but I’m making this son of a bitch suffer for what he did to you.”

Sansa lifts her gaze to the other woman, and there is a long moment of loaded silence. Shireen shifts uncomfortably at his side, but Rickon pays keen attention to his sister; once upon a time, Sansa would wave it off, say _He tried but he didn’t actually do it, so just drop it,_ give an excuse to leave it, to let bygones be bygones, but she is not the old Sansa anymore. _She hasn’t been for a while now,_ he thinks, and he’s fiercely proud when she sets her jaw, chin jutting out in defiance.

“Good. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about him. I even- I even know what kind of underwear he wears,” and the red-haired and the blonde exchange a grim smile.

“So, this password,” Bronn says after a moment of looking back and forth between them. “I reckon y’all want me to break in and gain access to emails or something?”

 “Yes and no,” Shireen says, and Rickon frowns down at her in confusion. They’ve spoken a few times since last seeing each other, have relied mainly on text messages and one particularly steamy photo she sent him, and she has not given him any inkling as to what she now refers. “I need you to tail Cersei, and I’ve got the cash you want right here,” she says, tapping a pocket that Rickon now notices is bulging slightly. “But I only need you to cover me and give me time. I know the email, and I know the password. I know where the spare key is, so long as she hasn’t moved it since Robert died. And since I’m the only one to have even the slightest of excuses for being there, I’m going to do the breaking in,” Shireen says, and Rickon’s jaw drops.

 

Sansa rests comfortably against the warm expanse of Sandor’s chest, her arms folded atop his as he holds her, his chin on the crown of her head, and she can tell from his occasional grunt that he is as amused as she is, and it is all she can do not to laugh. Rickon is struggling under the weight of hypocrisy, she can tell, as he tries in vain to convince Shireen that she shouldn’t get involved, that it is too dangerous, that she could get hurt. Sandor lifts his head and then there is a gust of his breath against her ear and she shivers uncontrollably, her eyes sliding closed as she feels his lips and the scruff from the good side of his face against her earlobe and neck.

“Are you going to try and mace him?” It is a rumbling, tumbling whisper, the sandpaper of a cat’s tongue, and it makes Sansa crane her neck ever so slightly to bring her ear closer to his mouth.

“If he takes a swing at you, maybe,” she murmurs, and he chuckles deep and low, kissing her cheek before returning his chin to the top of her head. They would give the lovers privacy in this tense little spat, but the rain has returned with a vengeance, and Shireen was the only one to bring an umbrella.

“Okay, fine, you _could_ ,” Rickon says with exasperation as Shireen reminds him she could say she thought Robert may have had something of her father’s. “But, you know, what if she has an alarm system, huh?”

Sansa looks to Shireen who is momentarily stymied and no less frustrated because of it. She is a tempest in a teapot, and Sansa is glad Rickon has found a woman who can stand up to his outbursts, whose stubborn streak and gumption can even, if required, outmatch his own. But Rickon, seeing her hesitation, grasps at it like a handful of straws, and even Sansa has to admit he has a point.

“Yeah! Yeah, see?” He says triumphantly, but then Margaery, standing beside Bronn, both of them wearing expressions of ill- disguised amusement, clears her throat.

“What?” Rickon says, not just a little rudely as he whips his head around to look at her. Margaery raises her eyebrows but aside from that she makes no reaction.

“Is Joff an only child?”

“Yes,” they all four of them say in unison.

“It’s more than likely his birthday then, either the day and month or the year. If there was another sibling, it’s likely to be the youngest kid’s birthday. People are predictable like that, and considering this woman apparently uses one word for all her passwords, I’m going to call her predictable.”

Shireen, who was looking and listening intently, lifts her eyebrows in feigned shock and surprise, and with her mouth open in a parody of an overjoyed smile, she turns to slowly look at Rickon.

“Oh _come on,_ ” he shouts, throwing his hands in the air and turning to his sister. “You guys, come on, talk some sense into her, would y- oh,” he says when he registers the dry look on her face, and likely a glare on Sandor’s. “Well, shit,” he says.

“You were happy to have me do it, little brother. You were happy to have Sandor do it, too. Now it’s time to be happy to have Shireen do it, if she wants to. It’s her choice and you know it.”

Rickon mutters in frustration but is otherwise silent, a tall, scowling statue of discontent, but Shireen unwinds him, bit by bit, setting her closed umbrella against the railing, unzipping his hoodie to slide her arms inside and pull him close to her. Her brother’s head inclines as she murmurs to him so quietly none other can hear her, and soon he gives a reluctant nod, and Sansa can see Shireen smile brilliantly, beautifully, just before she stands on her toes and kisses him. Here in the rain it would be romantic if the poor things didn’t have this strange audience and an even stranger reason for the meeting in the first place.

“Well, I guess that’s settled, then,” Bronn says after the four of them watch Rickon and Shireen kiss, for lack of anything better to do, and the youngest of the three couples jumps slightly at the sound of him, and Sansa grins because she knows what love looks like. She could take a picture of them and slap it on a greeting card, and the lucky few in this world would have a person to whom they’d send it.

“We’ll need addresses and full names,” Margaery says, holding her cupped palm upturned in the rain, and Sansa is surprised to see it’s letting up again. The other woman flattens her hand, turns it sideways, and lets whatever rainwater that collected fall free to the ground beneath them, and then she smiles up at everyone. “You said he’s on Facebook, right?”

“Yeah, I can give you my Facebook password if you want to keep an eye on him through my account,” but Margaery waves her off with an affable smile.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get him to friend me. I have like eight Facebook accounts. I’ll get in, trust me,” she grins, leaning in with a raised eyebrow, and she looks positively, deliciously wicked; Sansa has a momentary stab of jealousy, because she got in but was unable to do anything, but it’s extremely short lived. If Margaery wants to waltz into the lion’s den, so be it. She’ll not go back.

“Trust her,” Bronn says, appraising his girlfriend with frank and unabashed desire, and she smiles prettily for it, saying _Aww_ and giving him an open mouthed kiss on the lips. “She’ll get a date over that fucking site without even giving him her number,” he grins, his hand lowering out of sight behind her, making Margaery squeal.

There is another sort of shout behind Sandor and Sansa, and all six of them turn to look, Sansa peering around him as if he is a brick wall and she is spying from behind it. The sound came from the concrete tunnel that passes through a manmade hill of stones, and Sansa remembers playing tag and hide and go seek there, remembers the ever present faint smell of urine from the homeless people who’d sleep there, and her nose wrinkles from the memory.

The sound of glass shattering tinkles out from the tunnel towards them, and at the sound Sandor turns to face the tunnel in full while Rickon and Bronn step forward, standing on either side of Sandor. It is both comical and impressive; funny for the setting in which they display such bravado, a children’s playground, and imposing  for the no-questions-asked manner in which all three of them step up to the plate.

“Well that’s kind of hot,” Margaery whispers to her and to Shireen as they close ranks behind the men, all three women standing with their arms folded across their chests as they hang back and observe.

“No kidding,” grins Shireen, and Sansa is forced to agree, though she pretends Rickon is not her little brother when she admits it.

“Here they come,” says Bronn. Sansa isn’t sure if she truly hears it or if she imagines it, but one of them cracks their knuckles, and Margaery bites back a snicker.

“No fucking way,” Rickon mutters, and she sees her brother tense; even from behind, even with the majority of his frame hidden within the shapelessness of his hoodie, his head covered in a watchman’s cap, it is clear that something has made him go rigid, and whether it’s from fear, shock or anger, she does not know, not until he seethes “Motherfucking Wex.”

Several things happen at once. Sandor turns his head to him instantly, whip-smart fast, and Sansa says “THE Wex?” just as Shireen goes “Wex PYKE?” and all Rickon seems to be able to do is nod, clench his fists and stand rooted to the spot. _So it’s anger, then,_ Sansa thinks. _Anger and hurt and pain._

“Wex Pyke, huh,” Sandor says, and Sansa is proud of her brother, because Sandor and Shireen’s reactions mean he has shared this part of himself, the part he made his entire family swear to never share with anyone else. She has kept her word because it is his story and his secret to tell, but she is relieved to know he has people he trusts now, people he loves in addition to his family. _People who_ are _his family,_ she self-corrects.

“We should go,” Sansa says finally, trying to pull apart this web of tension that has filled the little turret.

“We will,” Sandor says, turning away from the sight that she can now see, without her 6’5” lover blocking her view, and there he is, Wex Pyke in all his scrappy glory, lighting a cigarette or a joint in the abating rain with some other gutter punk who is impatiently gesturing for the lighter, “in just a minute. Bronn,” he says, and it’s neither a question nor a command, but Bronn understands and nods and Rickon is too focused on staring at his go-directly-to-jail card to realize their sudden departure.

“Where are you _going_ ,” Sansa hisses, but Sandor just shakes his head and holds a finger to his lips as he grabs the children’s fire pole in one hand and uses it to vault himself down to the ground. Bronn follows, and now Sansa does hear knuckles cracking as the two of them stalk across the grass to where Wex and the other nameless wonder stand, blowing smoke into the chilly, damp air.  Margaery, Shireen and she all wordlessly rush forward to the railing, flanking Rickon on either side, and the four of them watch together as Sandor points them out to Bronn. Bronn jogs forward, not stopping until he grabs the unknown guy by the arms, dragging him away from his friend.

This is the third time she has been witness to Sandor’s physical capabilities; the first with Joff and the second with Rickon, and both of them were moments where he had lost his cool. This is _not_ one of those moments, she can tell from the way he carries himself, striding with his shoulders back, his pace measured. When Wex finally stops trying to shove the brawnier, older, more hardened Bronn off of his friend and turns to see Sandor, there is just one blow to be made, right in the center of his face, a punch clearly aimed to break the bridge of his nose. She, Shireen and Margaery all wince and hiss in a breath of surprise at the impact, exhale when Wex hits the sodden ground like a brick, but Rickon stands tall, motionless save for a slow, wicked grin that spreads across his face. Sandor shouts something down to Wex and then kicks him in the ribs, and when he turns to head back to the rest of them, Bronn releases the friend, who runs for Wex, knowing better than to follow their attackers.

“There,” Sandor says when he returns, holding out his hands to her so that he might help her down. Sansa goes willingly, bending to rest her hands on his shoulders, and he grabs her round the waist and lowers her to the ground before looking up to Rickon, gray eyes squinting into the rain. “We’re even now.” Rickon can only nod.

Bronn is laughing when he jogs back to the covered turret, shaking his head. “I think that kid pissed himself, he was so terrified. Well, whatever he did to deserve it, he got his, that’s for sure. C’mon, M, get your fine ass down. I’m hungry and I want to get dry.”

Margaery laughs. “I told you he’d want dinner this early,” she says to Shireen, and when she looks back to Bronn she twirls her finger in the air, as if she were stirring something. “I want a ride,” she says and Bronn sighs with a grin, turning around as commanded by the swirl of her slender finger, and Margaery gives Sansa and Shireen a girlish grin before crouching down and jumping onto Bronn’s back. She wraps her arms and legs around him and he hoists her up with his hands under her thighs.

“Text me with the information later, Sandor. I think we can make this shit go down next weekend,” he says.

“Next week is Thanksgiving,” Sansa reminds them, and they all of them stand in momentary dumb confusion, staring at her. "What?" She says with a shrug. "It's a holiday."

“Well, damn, I guess that means M is going to be cooking me a shitty, dried out turkey,” Bronn says, and she kicks him from her perch on his back. “We’ll shoot for the following week then,” he says, still laughing over dried out turkey and getting kicked by his girlfriend, who seems to love him as passionately as she teases him; she's got her face buried in the crook of his neck before she thinks to lift her head and say goodbye.

“Nice meeting y’all. Bye, Sandy,” Margaery waves from Bronn’s back as he heads for their car, and Sandor mutters, rolling his eyes. Shireen laughs, but when he glares up at her she claps both hands over her mouth, eyes wide, trying to stifle the huffs of laughter that seep through her fingers.

“Sandy?” Sansa asks, her voice a few octaves higher from the sheer disbelief, and she struggles to keep the laughter at bay. “Can _I_ call you Sandy?”

“So help me, woman, if you even dare,” he says, but then Rickon and Shireen are on the ground beside him, Shireen looking at Sandor with open admiration and approval, now that she’s gotten over her giggles, while her brother just grins and shakes his head.

“Jesus, man, I don’t know what to say. Thank you, I guess.” Rickon laughs then, looking up at the iron gray sky, still shaking his head from the disbelief, the wonderment, the _justice_ of it all, and it’s contagious; soon they’re all laughing, and Rickon suddenly pulls Sandor in for what Sansa always refers to as a boy hug: one shouldered with hearty slaps to the back. “But what did you yell at him? We couldn’t hear it.”

 Sandor grins back with a shrug, looking proud of himself for one of the first times Sansa has ever seen. “I told him ‘Rickon Stark sends his regards,’ and then I cracked his fucking ribs.”

 

 

Chapter title taken from Team - Lorde


	17. I Put A Spell On You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is talk of gratitude. There are confessions. There is revenge.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115057349098/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-17-i-put-a-spell-on-you)

“Seriously?” Renly makes to snatch the glass of wine she just deftly removed from his hand, but Shireen is too fast for him, and has filled her mouth with two thirds of it before he regains control of the glass, and she raises her eyebrows, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s as she works on swallowing several ounces of wine.

“It’s your third glass, Ren,” she says with a gasp once it’s over and done with. “The turkey still has two hours to cook, your green beans need parboiling, the potatoes aren’t even peeled, and our fucking guests haven’t even arrived. _And_ you haven’t even gotten dressed yet,” which is true. Her uncle is doing Thanksgiving food prep in his pajamas, and if he finishes another glass of wine, he’ll be hosting dinner that evening with stained teeth, wearing linen drawstring pants and a t-shirt. “Come on,” she says, gentler this time. “Go shower and change; I know how to watch a timer, for chrissakes.”

“Fine,” he snaps cheerfully, drinking the paltry amount of wine Shireen could not fit into her mouth, setting the glass down, pointing a finger in her face. “But remember this, sugar, I brined that bird for over 24 hours, and if you _do_ fuck it up, you’re paying for the pizzas out of your own pocket.”

He wanders upstairs to do as she asked, and Shireen listens intently until she hears the shower turn on, and then she smiles sadly, shaking her head. Though he’s lighthearted and he’s funny, though he cracks jokes and snaps his fingers in the air as if life is just one long punchline, she knows sadness and she knows denial, she knows the tactics used to bury pain. There’s the increase in his consumption of alcohol, the shifting of his bedtime into the wee hours of the morning, the time of his rising to afternoon. He’s still air and laughter and smiles but she hasn’t lived with him for this long without learning a thing or two. Her uncle is clearly depressed, maybe scared, definitely bored, and it fuels her further to go through with the plan, to go through breaking into Cersei’s house, to bring her uncle’s killer before the judge and jury.

Renly’s wine has given her a taste for it, and while the sun hasn’t set yet, it’s still a holiday, and so Shireen pours herself a glass and sits at the kitchen table, staring at the clock, fearful of ruining the turkey. She thinks Renly’s idea of hosting Thanksgiving dinner is another attempt at pushing away reality, staving off the pain, but selfishly she’s delighted for it. Since her father died, holiday dinners were sporadically spent at Robert and Cersei’s, until before long it became clear those were less labors of love and more labors of expectations. Since then it’s been just Ren and her; the idea of actual friends at the dining table is almost too good to be true.

She takes a few more sips of wine before checking her reflection in the hall mirror one more time. She’s been with Rickon long enough now to know that her signature cherry red lipstick will likely end up a smeared mess by the end of the night, so she’s in a thin layer of slippery lip gloss instead. Her dark blue eyes pop from the gray eye shadow, but there’s something else, and then she says “Oh, right,” because it’s happiness there. It’s love. And then, it’s the doorbell.

She doesn’t have to walk far into the foyer to hear a squabble on the other side of the front door; she can hear Sansa admonishing Rickon for not bringing anything for their hosts. _I was on the bike, okay? How do I carry flowers on a fucking motorcycle?_  Sansa’s voice bites back with _Like you’re the world’s first boyfriend with a motorcycle, bub. Figure it out._ Shireen bites her lip and grins when she opens the door and finds Rickon glaring at his sister as he clutches a bouquet of flowers in a fist, and Sansa’s blazing look is no less fearsome than her little brother’s. Shireen catches Sandor’s gaze first and he rolls his eyes before gently nudging Sansa with his elbow, and then the redhead’s face transforms with its smile and twinkling blue eyes when she looks at Shireen.

“Shireen! Happy Thanksgiving. We’re so honored to be asked over, thank you so much. I brought some wine,” she says when Sandor opens the storm door, scowling over her shoulder to her brother before walking inside.

“It wouldn’t be a holiday without y’all, that’s for sure,” Shireen says as they hug, and then Sandor slips in and lets the storm door slam shut before Rickon has a chance to even grab the door handle, and she can hear the faint _fucking assholes_ before she pushes it open and steps outside. She’s in a sundress and cardigan but the sweater does little against the promised cold snap that has finally settled around Nashville like a roosting hen on her nest of eggs.

“I uh, I got these for you,” Rickon says, holding out the bouquet of fall flowers in such beautiful awkwardness that Shireen thinks he’s never bought a flower for a girl in his life. He’s in the same black button down shirt he wore the first time he came for dinner, but this time he’s got a sweater over it, and the clean cut cuteness clashes wonderfully with his ratty converses and his motorcycle helmet under his arm.

“No, you didn’t,” she says, and his face runs through a battery of expressions before he finally laughs and tosses the flowers to the ground, making her laugh along with him.

No, I didn’t,” he grins, walking towards her, into her, his hands cupping her face as he kisses her. Shireen sighs with a whimper as she winds her arms around him, loses herself in the blissful moment until Rickon’s hands drop and he kneads the flesh of her ass, and then there is a sharp rap of knuckles on the glass of the storm door, and they spring apart as if they have been electrocuted.

“Get your hands off of my niece, you animal!” Renly shouts, and when Shireen looks over her shoulder she can see him laughing, his wet hair flung across his forehead, and she’s happy to see he’s wearing a sweater and jeans instead of days-old pajamas. “And pick up those fucking flowers, they’re mine; _I’m_ the one who’s been cooking the whole damn day.”

“So what are we all grateful for, huh?” Renly asks after they’ve all glutted themselves on his perfectly brined turkey, the sausage stuffing and green beans, the creamy brussels sprouts and buttery roasted potatoes. He tried to have one of them sit at the head of the table but they all refused so they might honor the chef, and so he sits, a happy, jovial king ruling over the table as Sansa and Sandor sit to his right and Shireen and Rickon sit to his left. Despite all the tensions as of late, Sansa’s trauma, Sandor and Rickon’s fight, the revelation of passwords and the inclusion of new friends to help them in their plans, conversation strays far and wide from those topics, and it is largely a dinner of laughter and bawdy jokes, surreptitious hands on thighs and kisses at the table. This new request of Renly’s, however lighthearted, is probably the most serious topic they’ve touched on, and for a moment everyone ponders their responses.

“Age before beauty, so I’ll go,” Renly says, and Sandor barks out a laugh, waves him to be silent.

“If that’s the case then I’ll go first,” he says, glancing over at Sansa, who is biting her lip and wearing a red wine blush. Renly thanks him for the compliment and Shireen grins, leans into Rickon who has long since dragged her chair flush to his, so that they basically sit in a high-backed loveseat here at the table. Sandor sips his neat bourbon and clears his throat, but while the liquor might make the words easier for the mouth, they don’t help with his gaze, and so he keeps that aimed at his empty plate. “I am grateful for hitting rock bottom. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here, and I ah,” he says, finally getting the nerve to look up, and he looks right at Sansa, who is there waiting for him, breathless and beautiful as always, “I don’t ever want to be anywhere else again,” he says, making her smile, making her lean in to kiss him.

“Well, I’ll be sure to clear out a guest room for you,” Renly jokes, and they all laugh though they know it’s at Sansa’s side to which he refers and not this house. Renly declares his gratitude for Shireen not messing up his turkey and for the friends she has brought into his life, and she scoffs as they all toast to that.

“My family,” Sansa says with a smile, gazing at Sandor before looking around at all of them. “The family absent and the family present at this table. Every one of you,” she smiles, and Shireen and Renly give a genuine, heartfelt _Awwww_ in unison which makes Sansa roll her eyes though she smiles easily enough.

“Let’s see,” says Rickon, slinging his arm over her shoulder, dragging her even closer as he uses that hand to tick off the fingers of his other, ignoring her when she mimes choking from the snug embrace. “I am a free man, I have my sister, my friends, I have a job, and best of all I have a Shireen,” he says, drawing back somewhat so he may kiss her, as boldly and deeply as if they were alone, and she holds him by the back of his neck as Renly hoots at them, as Sansa goes “Best of all, more than your _sister?_ ” though she is laughing, and Sandor good naturedly mutters something about getting a room.

“What about you, Shireen? What are you thankful for?” Rickon’s question is a soft gust and everyone quiets down to listen, and her eyes are still closed when she answers him.

“You’re an idiot if you don’t already know,” she says, and she feels his huff of laughter on her lip before she smothers it with a kiss.

 

They have turned on and are currently blasting Motown, Shireen and Sansa, and are busier dancing with each other in the kitchen than doing any of the dishes they promised they’d do, but it is too amusing to remind them, and so Sandor sits on the kitchen table with Rickon and watches them, his arms folded across his chest. They are a bouncing tumble of laughter, brown and red hair flinging in the air as they point fingers at him and Ric, lip synching to Aretha Franklin lyrics and using wooden spoons for microphones, and his friend beside him can’t stop laughing, and it’s not long before Sandor is laughing as well, shaking his head as Sansa tells him all about the house that Jack built.

They give as captivating a distraction as there ever was in this world, but when Renly drifts onto the back patio from another room of the house, flicking on the backyard light, Sandor cannot help but notice; he’s nowhere near as lost and alone as he once was, but he supposes those things never truly disappear for good, and they are able to sniff out the fellow sorrow in others like a hound dog on the trail. And though there is a sliding glass door between them, though Renly does nothing more than sit at the table outside and light himself a cigar, Sandor can see it for what it is.

“Hey, Shireen, you guys have any more of that bourbon?” He asks, and she nods, dancing over to the cupboard with the liquor in it, and he watches, still amused, as Sansa grabs Rickon and makes him help her at the sink, and he goes willingly albeit with a  groan audible even over the loud music. She starts to soap up the used glassware from dinner after chucking a dry dish cloth at him, and the pop of her hips to the beat of the music could make Sandor rethink all of his life choices if it was asked of him. He’s lost in the sight of her well enough that Shireen has to physically shove the bottle of whiskey into his chest, and there is a question in her eyes when he looks down at her. He nods towards the back patio and she sighs when she sees her uncle.

“Here,” she says a moment later, and he pinches the rims of two lowball glasses between his fingers when she holds them up to him. “Thanks, Sandor,” she smiles, and he nods, watching her slink back into the kitchen to slap Rickon on the ass, earning herself a string of obscenities and the laughter of his sister.

“Hey, man,” he says as he slides the door close behind him, the swell of music cutting off abruptly, and Renly looks up from a contemplative puff, pushing the darkness from his expression a beat too late for Sandor to miss it.

“Hey there,” he replies easily enough, the smile in his eyes almost, _almost_ merry enough to make Sandor second guess himself, but then he’s only had one drink, and is nowhere as delayed in reaction or assessment as the others might be.

“Thought I could join you for a drink if that’s all right,” he says, unsure of what he means to do, only knowing that no man should isolate himself in the cold without a warm drink and, if need be, someone to vent to. _Renly has lost someone too,_ he thinks, and though this is the first time he’s met the man, it is still a connection they have, for even if Sandor hasn’t lost anyone, the feeling that this is his family now is still in his heart, and as an extension of that, the things done to Sansa, done to his mate Rickon, are things that have been done to him.

“That’d be wonderful, so long as my rotten little niece doesn’t try to stop me or steal my drink,” Renly says with a little grin, and Sandor chuckles.

“Who d’you think gave me this?” Sandor says, pouring a finger of bourbon in each glass before setting one in front of Renly and sitting across from him with the other glass balanced on his knee.

“She’s a good girl,” Renly says, inhaling the aroma of the liquor before sipping it and puffing on his cigar. “Want one?” Sandor agrees and Renly is gone for just a moment, disappearing through another sliding door that must lead to an office or some other similar private lair, and soon they’re both puffing in the chilly air, the bourbon warming them as much as the smoke.

“So Sandor,” Renly says after about twenty minutes, and he has heard from Shireen that liquor loosens her uncle's tongue, and he wonders what he has in store for him. “Are you in love? Are you in love with Sansa?”

Renly nods towards the house and Sandor turns, watches as she spins her brother around, leading him in the dance as Rickon clearly has two left feet, and Shireen just barely catches the beer bottle that he knocks off of the counter, and then the three of them are laughing hysterically, and he can just barely hear it through the door, through the thick of this cold November night. It warms his heart to see them laughing. He has seen Sansa cry and break down, has seen her lose her temper; he has seen Rickon lose his cool and nearly shut down, and it’s nice to witness a little revelry. _Of course I’m in love with her,_ he thinks as he sees the long paleness of her throat while she laughs.  But there is a fear there, to blurt it out and set it free in the world where it can get abused and knocked down, where it can struggle and die in the harsh reality, and those gloomy thoughts threaten to take him over when they are interrupted.

“You know, I’ve never been in love. There’ve been attractions before, crushes even, but I uh, you know, I have hidden myself, who I really am, for such a long, long time. You know, you and I, we’re in our forties. I think it might be too late for me, being so fucking stubborn my whole life, for being so… So scared,” Renly sighs, and now Sandor thinks he gets it. “But you’ve gotten your chance. It came late so don’t sit there and lie to yourself, and don’t lie to her, either. Take the bull by the horns. Tell the world to go fuck itself, if that’s what’s got you so nervous,” and Sandor lifts his eyebrows at the man’s perception.

They drink in silence for several minutes, and their short cigars are two thirds finished, but Sandor does not habitually smoke, and so he leans over to put it out in the large ceramic ashtray on the table. Renly sighs and follows suit, but when he stands after they both drain the last of their bourbon Sandor stays him with a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re in your forties, mate, you’re not dead. And you know, gay, straight, twenty four or forty four, trust me. There’s still time. If a man like me can find a woman like that, then I’m sure there’s some guy out there for you,” he says, and he grins at Renly’s look of shock at his candid words. “You’re not the only one who can read people like books,” Sandor says, and Renly throws back his head and laughs.

He and Sansa leave sometime after eleven, and he does his best to keep up his end of the conversation in the car, but his mind is full of the talk he had with Renly, and he’s grateful Rickon and Shireen decided to sleep over at the Baratheons’ because it would be even harder to keep up with three of them bantering back and forth. But Renly’s words roll around in his head, _don’t lie to yourself, don’t lie to her,_ and he wonders if the omission of admitting it is the lie, because it’s not like she has asked point blank if he loves her. _Would you answer if she did?_ He asks himself, and he has to glance out the driver’s side window to hide the sudden grin that crops up from nowhere, and when it tightens the scars on his face he doesn’t care because he can feel the ghost of her kisses on them now instead of the ghost of fire and smoke and pain.

“That was so much fun,” Sansa sighs when they’re finally home and in the kitchen, and he’s drinking wine with her, needing it for courage more than the reward for having been the designated driver. It’s a room of muted light, the majority of it bleeding in through the French doors from the back patio lights, though some falls down from beneath the cabinets behind her, lighting the tips of her hair like the wicks of candles. She sits on the counter as she so often does, her long legs, bare beneath her blue sweater dress, crossed at the ankle as she sips from her glass, and she smiles at him from across the room.

“Aye, it was,” he murmurs, and his tone of voice is far away even to his ear, so he’s not surprised when she tips her head, smiling at him with a frown, as if she means to figure him out, as if she hasn’t already, as if she does not already know him, the dark corners of his heart as well as the illuminated center.

“Hey,” she says quietly, voice as intoxicating as the wine in his glass. “Where’d you just go, Sandor?”

He lets loose a low laugh, shaking his head as he drains his wine and sets it on the kitchen table beside him, and he stands, sweeping back with a hand the few loose strands of hair that hang in face, because he doesn’t want anything in his way when he next speaks to her. Sandor crosses the room like a moth to a flame, a moth whose been burned before but knows that it’s safe here with her. Sansa’s breath catches in her throat when he slips his thumbs between her knees and pushes them apart so he can stand that much closer to her, and he runs his hands around the outside of her thighs so his fingers are beneath her, and he tugs her, gently, towards him, and then, his heart pounding, he decides to tell her everything.

“I meant what I said at dinner tonight, that I don’t want to go anywhere else, because,” he says, and he feels dizzy, even after everything they’ve been through, “because I am in love with you, utterly. I’m yours, and I need you to know that.” Sandor dares himself to look in her eyes as he says it, and there is the faintest lift of her eyebrows as she regards him. “I need you to know that.”

“Yeah?” It’s a soft sound, soft like the slip of her hair through his fingers before he falls asleep at night, sweet and gentle, but his heart and his declaration are in his mouth and there is no room for words, so he simply nods. “You’re really in love with me, Sandor?” He wants to growl, to grumble _Yes, woman, did you not just hear me,_ but she’s smiling that cat with cream smile of hers, and then there is the slow lift of her thighs out of his hands as she wraps them around the trunk of his body, pulling him flush to the counter, pulling herself flush to him.

“Yes,” he sighs when her arms follow the action of her legs and slide across his shoulders, and he can feel the press of her fingers against his neck when they lace together, and then he is wonderfully trapped.

“Good,” she murmurs, fingers flexing as she pulls him in for a kiss, and his hands leave her legs to sink into her hair, to press against her ass, to hold her tight to him, “because I’ve been in love with you for a while now, and it’s been excruciating, hoping to hear you say it first.”

“Oh, God,” he says, because around her that’s all he seems to be reduced to, the final words of a man standing at the gallows or at the edge of a cliff, and then she’s pulling his hair from its knot on the back of his head, and he snaps to action because he knows her, knows she likes his hair down when they fuck. The growl slips out now against the warm skin of her neck, and in the midst of his open mouthed kiss to her vocal cords he can feel the hum in her throat, and before he even has a chance to figure out how to get her out of her dress she’s tugging his sweater over his head, and he is forced to break free to give her what she wants.

“I love you,” she says, leaning forward on the counter to drag him back into her clutches, and he takes advantage of the moment to tug the skirt of her dress out from beneath her, and the rough motion earns him a ragged gasp from her which only drives him on. So many of her dresses and shirts have zippers and buttons, strange little hooks and clasps, but his lovely girl wears something simple tonight, and the stretchy fabric is pliable enough to be yanked off clean over her head, and she’s already unhooking her bra, and together they take it off and throw it to the floor.

“You do, don’t you,” he replies with a grin, words kissed on her skin in the valley between her breasts, and the rise of goose bumps fleetingly makes him wonder if it’s too cold here in the kitchen, but she’s panting as if she’s dying in the desert sun, so he lets her press on. Her fingers are deft with the button and zipper of his jeans, and it’s only a matter of moments, the dragging down of her panties and the drop of his jeans before he’s inside her, and the previously quiet kitchen is full of _I love you¸ I love you,_ ofthe high pitched gasps and cries that come from the woman he loves and the noises that come from him, louder than he has ever been because he is the happiest he’s ever been.

 

It is late, late Saturday afternoon before Rickon even bothers coming home, likely having spent the past two nights as locked up in Shireen as she and Sandor have been in one another, and they none of them bother to hide it. He staggers in with a carnal little grin on his face, and they don’t even attempt to pull apart from the pajama-clad tangle they’ve made of themselves on the sofa. She’s slouched in the corner of the sofa and Sandor is stretched out on his stomach between her legs with his arms around her hips, his scarred cheek pressed to her right thigh and her left calf slung across his back as they watch some monster movie. It is the tamest they’ve been with each other since late Thursday evening when he told her he loved her, and oh, has Sansa had much to be thankful for since then; but now she’s achingly, deliciously sore and Sandor has slept most of the day away, so this most languid of reclines is the naughtiest thing they can even muster.

Rickon doesn’t even bother giving them any grief for it, because he either knows he’d get called out for it or because he’s happy for them.  Instead he simply gives them a tired wave before he wanders into the kitchen, opens the fridge and slams it before shuffling back. She watches fondly as her brother pushes away the coffee table to sit unquestioningly on the floor, back against the sofa where Sandor’s feet are, and she thinks about family, and she thinks about love, and she thinks all things considered, it’s the sweetest silver lining on the worst cloud that has ever parked itself over her life.

“Did Betty White just say what I think she said?” Rickon asks after a long swallow of coke, and Sandor snorts against her thigh while she just laughs.

“She sure did,” Sansa says, happy to have her brother home, though there is something missing, and she wants to laugh again when she realizes, _it’s Shireen. I wish he’d brought Shireen back with him._

“I’m officially in love then,” her brother chuckles, and she must swallow a gasp when Sandor turns his head and gives her a light nip of teeth into the soft flesh of her thigh. She is swarmed with the memories of how many times he’s said as much to her over the past couple of days, how the initial declaration of love has opened a floodgate for them, how that first tentative, sweet outreaching of intimacy has become nail raking, wall-scratching lust and want. Now she has a taste of what he _really_ is when his self-control comes undone and falls useless to the floor around them. She’s had the gentle of him and the animal of him, and she can curl up and sleep soundly in both, content to greet either angel or devil when she wakes, when she shows him either the dove or the wolf in her.

“Poor Shireen,” Sansa quips as light as she can, butting Sandor in the chest with the knee he’s draped over, and she grins when he grunts, but she’s distracted by the sharp look her brother gives her.

“If you don’t think I love Shireen then you’re blind as a bat,” he says, and instead of giving his glare to Rickon, Sandor simply turns his face up to hers, eyebrows raised with a slight smile, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“Well, have you even _told_ her?” Sansa says, and she knows she sounds overly imperious for someone who has only enjoyed that selfsame luxury for less than 48 hours, but whatever Rickon wants to say is interrupted by three metallic chimes, one from Rickon’s pocket, one from the end table behind Sansa, and the third from the depths of the living room. Rickon is the first to scramble for his phone, making Sansa roll her eyes again because it’s all so beautifully _obvious_ that he thinks it’s from Shireen. Sansa groans from the backwards stretch that used to come so naturally in ballet, her arm reaching over her head to grab her phone, and she is shocked to find that it’s a YouTube link sent from Margaery.

“Holy shit,” Rickon says, and then he snorts a laugh so piggish it makes Sansa look up before she taps the link in her text message. “Oh my God. Oh fuck. I can’t stop watching this,” Rickon says. His phone chimes again, and then he’s chortling to himself as he’s tapping out a message to someone. Sandor’s phone chimes once more from the living room.

“Should I get that?” he asks from the nook between her thighs, and she shakes her head.

“I think we’re all getting the same link,” she says, and he hoists himself up somewhat so they can watch the YouTube video together. Rickon is chortling so hard Sandor barks at him to fuck off or shut up, and it’s clearly so good he has to follow the first order, because he’s laughing hysterically to who can only be Shireen on the other end of his phone as he grabs his cigarettes and slams his way out the front door.

It’s an odd feeling she has when the video starts and she sees it’s a close up on Joff Lannister’s face, and her instinct is to throw the phone across the room, but Sandor stays her hand, and where his grip on her rear had previously been salacious, it moves now to her waist and it’s a soft comfort.

“Margaery’s clever, but she’s not cruel, love. There’s a reason she sent it; she’d not do it to hurt you,” and so with his hand holding hers, she taps ‘play’ again, and they watch together.

Joff is swaying and slurring in his seat on a barstool in some flashy, shiny club, and through the speakers they can hear the _bumpbump_ of bass, the in and out of voices and laughter, and then Sansa recognizes Margaery’s voice, the loudest one they can hear, and it’s obvious she’s the one holding the smart phone that’s taping him.

“How you feel, baby?” she asks, and Joff’s eyebrows lift as if in answer, and he thunks an elbow on the bar, finger pointing to the sky as if he has a point to make, but then he slides off the stool like a scoop of melted ice cream, and puddles onto the floor at Margaery’s feet.

“Nice shoes,” Sansa murmurs when she sees the gorgeous heels hooked on the lower rung of her barstool.

“I prefer you barefoot,” Sandor says, and she smiles despite it all, sifting her fingers through his hair, and she is about to kiss the crown of his head when the video gets even more interesting.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck, what’s he doing?” The woman’s shrieking isn’t Margaery’s, however, it’s from another blonde, there in the video on the far edge of the camera’s frame, and she’s pointing in horror at Joff’s prone form, and when Sansa looks down to his slack body she says _HA_ before she can even help it.

“Jesus Christ almighty, the man shat himself,” Sandor says, and there are a hundred tinny voices roaring with laughter through her phone’s speakers, because what Sandor says is true; Joff’s jeans have darkened with a suspicious bloom of brown, and then it’s leaking out onto the club floor. She’s fighting between tears and laughter, but the laughter wins out when the crowd around Joff screams “King of shits! King of shits!” and she can’t even watch the video anymore, and the phone slips from her hand to the floor as Sandor cackles against the softness of her belly, as her head sags back against the armrest of the couch, because they’ve just watched Joff shit himself, have just listened to Margaery murmur “payback, bitch” into the speaker, and it’s too hilarious, it’s too beautiful to do anything but let the hilarity and justice billow out above them and sink down like a blanket that’s been shaken out after a long, long time.

Rickon bursts in at that moment, his phone against his ear, and he’s so beside himself with laughter that he hangs onto the door frame, so weakened from it all that he can hardly stand. There’s a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and the smoke is drifting in, but Sansa is so taken over with the giggles she doesn’t even care.

“Did you even see the hit count?” Her brother is snickering, snorting his laughter. “It’s already gotten over three thousand hits on YouTube and Shireen just told me it’s all over Facebook. Better yet, San, is the caption Margaery left. Did you read it?”

Sansa squints and scrolls down, tilting the screen so Sandor can read it, and then they’re all laughing so hard they can’t even hear the movie, anymore:

                                        

_This is what happens to little dick bitches like Joff Lannister who try to rape women: they accidentally take their own roofie and then they shit themselves. XOXO to Joff’s sad pair of jeans, and all the women he’s ever fucked with, especially one._

 

 

Chapter title taken from I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins (although tbh I hear the Marilyn Manson version more for this chapter)


	18. Dangerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor gets a hug from Shireen. Rickon to the rescue. The truth will out.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115060205463/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-18-dangerous)

She is determined, he can see it in her eyes each time a passing car’s headlights illuminates the two of them sitting in the cab of his truck, in the forward thrust of her chin, but she is also nervous, and that is plain as day in how she twists and untwists, twists and untwists a lock of hair in her hand. They are driving to Cersei’s house, Bronn having already sent the go ahead via text twenty minutes earlier as he tailed her and Lancel to a restaurant, and though Rickon pitched a fit when Sandor insisted Shireen ride with him, Sandor wants to make sure she’s ready for what’s coming, and conversation is nonexistent on a motorcycle.

They have taken three vehicles, Rickon on his bike, Sansa in the 4Runner, and Sandor and Shireen in his truck; three cars traveling in three directions will cause confusion in case they are spotted by a nosy neighbor or by Cersei herself. He is being followed now by Rickon, the lone headlight of the motorcycle closer than the two second rule, but he’s beyond agitated tonight now that it’s _his_ woman on the front line. He hopes Shireen has an easier time of it tonight than Sansa had; Sandor still dreams of her screaming, the sound of her kicking the wall, the way the door felt against his shoulder.

“Remember, you’ll probably only get three tries on the alarm code before the company notifies the police. What three variations are you going for?” They have done this quiz all week, on the front porch as Rickon smokes, on the couch during commercials, during another dinner over at Renly’s as they sat waiting on tenterhooks for Bronn’s call that the Lannister manse would be empty for a couple of hours. They got that call earlier tonight, Bronn and Margaery with their binoculars watching Cersei get dressed, watching Lancel lock up the house, finally texting that it’s time, that they are on the road. Between the initial call and the follow up text, Shireen was fine; nervous but excited, and ultimately all right, but now that they’re in the car rumbling down the dark suburban streets, he can practically hear the jangling of her nerves.

“1984, 0684, and 0622,” she says immediately, referring to Joff’s birth year, his birth month and year, and birth month and date, respectively. Sandor nods his approval. Shireen breathes out a shaky sigh. “Jesus, I think I might throw up,” she says. “That or pee my pants.”

“Not in my truck,” Sandor warns, and she laughs nervously, a thin, faraway thing. “You’re going to do fine, lass, all right? Just, you know. Remember you’ve been there before. Remember you were family once. Remember your story.”

“I’ve had a few drinks,” she recites, “And I got sad about my dad.  I haven’t heard from Renly in months but I wondered if there were any photo albums in Robert’s old stuff.”

“And the alarm code, if they have one?”

“Lucky guess,” she says, and Sandor nods as he turns onto Tyne, and he knows at the end of this road is Cersei’s house, and now his heart starts being faster. Shireen is no love of his, but he has grown fond of her as a friend; he likes her with Rickon, likes her with Sansa, and it would be a lie to say he doesn’t feel protective over her, perhaps like a brother would though he hasn’t had a sister in thirty six years and is unused to the feeling, is wary to call it that, wary to call up the pain and the absence, but there it is.

He parks halfway between the Lannister driveway and Belle Meade Boulevard where Tyne bottoms out, between two halos of light cast down from the streetlights, and Rickon rumbles up behind them, parking his bike sideways so it blocks Sandor’s plates, so his bike’s own plates face the wall of Cersei’s property. Soon after, Sansa parks in front of Sandor, backing up so her own plate is unreadable from the road. They all climb out of their vehicles, and he hears another rattled sigh Shireen lets loose when her feet touch the asphalt. It’s _cold_ , even for December, but the winter night feels all the more bitter out here where the lawns sprawl and the sun-soaked streets are fewer and farther between.

“I can do this, Shireen, you don’t have to,” Rickon says the moment the helmet is pulled off of his head and they come together. “Or at least let me go with you,” he suggests, hanging the helmet on a handlebar. They stand in a little group in the dead grass on the side of the road, all four of them with their arms folded across their chests. Their breath rises in hot gusts, blooming into bigger clouds whenever they speak, and Sandor suppresses a shiver even beneath two layers and his car coat.

“No way, honey. You’ll _definitely_ get arrested if they catch you. I’m the only one with a valid excuse.”

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary with you bringing a boyfriend, though,” he says, unable to drop it, and he stamps his feet to keep warm; if Sandor is cold, Rickon has to be freezing, even in his late brother’s leathers, his jeans and a scarf wound round his throat. He’s ridden a motorcycle before, and nothing can be quite as biting as winter wind at 40mph.

“I said _no,_ Rickon. Listen to me, and just, just fucking trust me, okay?” Shireen says, and it’s hard to see her face in the low light but the tone of her voice is clear enough. It’s edged with steel and it brooks no argument; Rickon seems to hear it too, because he suddenly steps into the middle of the little circle they form and he kisses her so hard she whimpers in surprise. Sandor and Sansa exchange a look and a shrug, and Sansa sighs.

“We need to hurry it up, bub,” she says, resting a hand on her brother’s shoulder, and he breaks free reluctantly. “We don’t have all that much time, the restaurant’s not so far away.”

“I’m going to be okay, I promise.” Shireen says, walking backwards towards the driveway of Cersei’s house. She’s a petite woman, but out here with the dark, dormant trees, the black stretch of road and the Lannister house looming behind her, she looks positively tiny, and for a minute, Sandor can understand how Rickon must feel to watch her disappear into the darkness. He thinks of watching Sansa trot up the stairs to Joff’s house, hidden as he was in shadow across the street, and he grimaces. “Wish me luck, honey,” she says with a smile, though her voice wavers.

“You don’t need it,” Rickon says, and as his eyes adjust to the darkness Sandor can see a secretive little smile on her face, as if this is a private joke, something only they know. “I’ll wish you speed and strength instead.”

“Oh honey, you’ve never seen me break into a house before. I don’t need those, either,” and then she bites her lip and turns to walk briskly towards the house. Rickon rakes his hair away from his face and holds his head in his hands, breathing out a string of expletives.

“Jeez, bub, where was all this worry and concern when it was me going into the fray?” Sansa asks, and it’s spoken lightly enough but there’s still an undercurrent of hurt to it, and to his credit Rickon picks up on it.

“Why do you think I’m so worried, San? You had Sandor come to your rescue, and I’m not even allowed near the damn place,” he says, looking towards the driveway instead of his sister, and he misses the sympathetic look she gives him. “She’s in there all by herself. I mean, we know what- we know what he did, what Joff tried to do, but this is the woman who had our parents _killed._ What’ll she do to Shireen if she finds her there?”

“Stay here, I’ll go with her until she gets in,” Sandor says abruptly, and both Stark siblings turn to look at him in surprise. “What? I’ll just make sure she gets the key, okay? Besides, if _you_ show up she’ll think you don’t believe she’s capable. I can just be my usual irritable self and she’ll think nothing of it,” he says, pressing a kiss to Sansa’s temple, and she breathes a shaky chuckle, and it reminds him that there is a woman who actually _loves_ his irritable self. But there is also someone here who loves Shireen as well, so he’ll check on her if it will calm Rickon down.

 He finds her halfway around the property, skirting the globes of spotlight that crown each corner of the house, and because his strides are longer he reaches her before she sees him, and when he grasps her by the shoulder she gasps and staggers sideways so that he has to catch her before she topples into the flowerbed.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me, Sandor. I think I just had a heart attack,” she says once she’s found her footing, and she pause to press a gloved hand against the lapel of her pea coat where he assumes her heart is hammering.

“I just wanted to make sure you found the key, is all,” he says gruffly, and she smiles gratefully to him. They walk in silence around the house, and Sandor recognizes the pond in the center of the yard, but while there are two sets of French doors leading into the house back here, Shireen keeps going around, wordlessly leading the way until they’re facing a single, nondescript glass-paneled door with half-closed blinds extending from the top to the bottom of the panes.

“It should be here,” Shireen says, and as she aims a little flashlight at the planters flanking the stoop, she tells him in breathless nervous gusts about how once they’d taken her uncle Robert out to lunch, she and her family, and Robert had gotten drunk and left his keys at the restaurant, and instead of having them simply turn back he insisted on using the spare set hidden out here, outside of the door to his office. “Ah, there,” she says, interrupting her own story to crouch down on the flagstone path next to a plain looking little rock that Sandor never in a million years would have glanced at. “I always think these things stand out like a sore thumb,” Shireen says as she picks it up and slides open a little trapdoor on its underside. Sandor grunts.

“I never would have thought twice about it,” he says somewhat defensively, his breath a plume of white illuminated by what little light that reaches them from the corner.

“Yeah? Well, you’d probably just bum-rush right through the door, right?” Shireen says, and he huffs a laugh despite himself and the intensity of their situation.

“Something like that,” he says, and then they stand there, staring at each other. Sandor clears his throat. “Listen up, lass, you’ll do fine, all right? Just keep those gloves on,” he says, pointing to the pair she wears. “Keep your cell phone and ear buds on when you call us, okay, and we’ll keep you posted on anything going on outside. Call Sansa’s phone, she’s ready and waiting. Rickon is too high strung to be of much use right now. And be careful, for his sake, all right?”

Shireen bites her lip and nods, and before he registers what’s happening she steps forward and hugs him around the middle so fiercely it forces the breath out of him in an _ooof._ He is taken aback, stunned even, but he’s not a complete asshole, not these days, so he hugs her back, albeit perhaps a bit awkwardly. He pats her back in what he hopes is a comforting sort of way; it was a long time before Sansa that he’d been with a woman, but it has been even longer since Sandor has been _friends_ with one, and he hasn’t embraced a woman platonically since before his grandmother died.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she says, muffled against the wool of his coat. “And don’t let Rickon do anything stupid, okay?” She is shy and embarrassed when she lets him go and steps back, but he grins to her in an attempt to lighten the pressure and tension.

“Maybe I’ll take a page out of your book and mace him, eh?” Shireen laughs, then claps a hand over her mouth to silence herself. “Go ahead, now, get in there, and let’s nail this bitch.”

Shireen nods, makes a shooing motion with her hands, and Sandor backs up towards the backyard, where he can then make a dash to the driveway and back onto Tyne. His last sight of Shireen is her taking a deep breath before staring down at the key, nodding once to herself, and then she steps up to the door, key poised at the ready as she aims her flashlight at the door knob. Then Sandor turns on his heel and jogs through the yard back to where Rickon and Sansa wait in the dark.

 

It’s as if she is in a dream state, so surreal this all is, starting when she crept down the driveway and onto Lannister property she’s not seen since before her father died. It’s as opulent as it ever was, with lawn art and sculptures far fancier than most people have inside their homes let alone sitting in the dirt, and the memories that come flooding back are far from pleasant, even though her parents are alive in them. There are the infamous mud pies, spit, and insults, condescending glares from Cersei and the stony silences from Tywin, and not for the first time it amazes her how the Lannisters’ presence seems to overwhelm even the most boisterous of Baratheons; Robert is a distant memory to her, fuzzy around the edges and it is hard to recall him ever living here, even with his booming laughter and the big bear hugs, the slaps on the back that would make her father’s teeth rattle.

She listens for Sandor’s footsteps to fade, and once she is relatively certain she is alone, Shireen sucks in a breath and inserts the key into the lock. She knew they’d not hide a key that doesn’t fit the lock, but still it amazes her that it works, that this new scheme of theirs is working out. She twists the key and the door opens with the gentlest of clicks, and the smell of warm, centrally-heated air greets her, along with the Christmassy scents of cinnamon and pine, and then there is the terrifying beeping sound that she was dreading. _So they’ve got an alarm system after all,_ she thinks, knowing it was stupid to hope for otherwise. _This is a family built and fed on secrets, on lies and murder; of course they have a fucking alarm, Shir._

It doesn’t take long to find it as she runs through the house, past the living room with the larger than life Christmas tree, and down the main hallway just off the foyer, and she skids to a stop on the over-polished floorboards, flipping open the cover to reveal the buttons beneath. She struggles to catch her breath as she punches in ‘1984’ and says _Fuck_ when a louder, longer beep informs her that it is not the right code, that she is a liar and a fraud. _I might as well be a Lannister._

“Fuck fuck fuck,” she breathes, pushing her hair out of her face as she types in ‘0622,’ and then she thinks she really will be sick to her stomach, and the police and Cersei will burst in to find her passed out in a puddle of her own sick; it reminds her of Joff’s YouTube video, and it’s the only thing that steels her nerves, the idea that she’d be reduced to such a level as his. Shireen grits her teeth and punches in ‘0684’ and the warning beeps stop as if they’d never gone off in the first place. She is standing in the silent hallway with the echo of near disaster going off in her head: _beep beep beep beep beep,_ and she shakes out a relieved laugh that is cut off by the phone ringing.

“ _Fuck!_ ” she says again, wondering wildly if it’s the alarm company, and now it’s a mad dash around the first floor of the house; the ringing seems to be coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Shireen races back to the office, thinking every office has to have a telephone, and just before the answering machine picks up, she lunges to the desk and snatches up the cordless. _Music City Alarm_ it reads on the caller ID, and she pushes the ‘on’ button without a second to spare.

“Hello?” She is panting, breathing as hard as if she’d run all the way here from Rickon and Sansa’s house, and she clutches at the stitch in her side.

“Ms. Lannister?” It’s the cheerful voice of a young man, bright and professional, and it makes her feel like a ragged, sweating mess of tangled nerves and nausea.

“Yes. Yes, this is she,” Shireen says as coldly as she can once she’s got a handle on her breathing, clearing her throat and closing her eyes, calling up with her mind’s eye a vision of statuesque Cersei, the frostiest of ice queens.

“Ah, good, Ms. Lannister, I hope you’re having a lovely evening, and I do hate to intrude on your night, but we’ve just received notification that your alarm went off, and there were erroneous entries made to the code before it was shut down.”

“And?” Shireen winces, hating to be so rude, but if she sits down and chats with this guy about the weather, it would be the worst impression of Cersei Lannister ever recorded in history. “My boyfriend forgot the code; I had to remind him. Is there anything else?” She fans her face, feeling uncomfortably hot in her sweater and coat and gloves; the heater must be set to close to 80. _I bet even central heating can’t unfreeze her blood,_ she thinks.

“Well, no, Ms. Lannister, nothing else, only we will be needing, of course, the password to the account, just so we can verify we did speak with you and no one else. Company policy, you know,” he says, maintaining his professional composure even in the face of her rudeness, and as he waits politely, Shireen feels herself slipping, slowly but surely, into the marshy bog of a panic attack. She thinks about just using Joff’s birthday again, the same that shut off the alarm, but then Sansa’s voice rises up, pushing through the memories she has of this house.

_Joff was drunk and was going on and on about this tapestry of the Battle of Castamere, and he said his mother loves it, names everything Castamere, even a fish in their pond._

“Castamere,” she blurts out, her eyes squeezed shut and her fist clenched at her side. _Thumpthump-thumpthump-thumpthump_ goes her heart, and fleetingly she wonders if a heartbeat can be strong enough to shatter a ribcage.

“Perfect. Wonderful. Thank you, Ms. Lannister, and I apologize for any inconvenience. Happy Holidays!” And Shireen is too flooded with the loose-limbed, rubbery feeling of relief to reply, and she hangs up the phone without saying another word to him, sets the cordless back its cradle and braces her hands against the edge of the desk, trying to regain mastery of herself, trying to calm herself down. After several moments she takes a deep breath and straightens to have a look around, flips the light switch so she can better see her surroundings.

The office she remembers was wallpapered in simple hunter green with dark wood wainscoting, furnished with a mahogany desk and leather chairs; it smelled of pipe tobacco and whiskey, and there had been a small collection of hardcover books, the type with stamped leather covers and gold-edged pages. This, however, has little if anything to do with Robert’s old hideaway; the walls are papered in red with gold filigree, a color scheme that is mirrored with the thick plush rug beneath her feet. Gone is the heavy, dark desk and in its place is a delicately carved one, bone white, with a scatter of knickknacks along the back wall it butts up against. But there is a laptop and there is a printer, and Shireen knows her walk down memory lane must come to a close.

She flips her hair over her shoulder and hurries to sit at the desk, has pulled a glove halfway off before Sandor’s reminder rings like an alarm in her head, and she hastily yanks the glove back down to her wrist. _Keep your cool, Shir, you got this,_ she thinks as she cracks open the laptop and turns it on, and as she waits for it to warm up she pulls her iPhone and headphones from her coat pocket and dials Sansa, gloved fingers fumbling with the small earbuds as she sticks them in.

“Hey,” Sansa answers after only half a ring. “I’m here. Go do what you have to do, but I’m here if you need me, and I won’t say a word.”

“Thanks,” Shireen whispers, though she just had a conversation with an alarm company employee at normal volume not two minutes ago. The computer winks to life, having only been sent to sleep, and she hits enter to continue on as owner and recoils instinctively when she sees that the wallpaper is a graduation photo of Joff standing in front of the house in his mortar board and tassel, his mother beside him standing proud as a peacock. Shireen wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, pulls up the internet and types “g” into the search bar, and “gmail” autofills immediately. When it asks for the password she enters that as well, and Shireen grins when Cersei’s inbox pops up. _Stupid Cersei,_ she thinks. _Poor, stupid, beautiful Cersei._

There are no new emails waiting for her so she clicks the ‘sent’ folder, and her eyebrows raise as she reads several threads’ worth of emails between Tywin and Cersei, and while they always seemed close knit to her as a girl, when it comes to business discussions there is no love lost between father and daughter. She grins when she reads one email in particular:

  _I have put my reputation and my life on the line making sure you get enough money to keep LR afloat, and I will be damned if you start handing over more responsibility to my shit brother instead of to me and Joff._

Shireen glances to the printer on the left corner of the desk and hits print; the thing buzzes to life in an instant, and soon she hears the rhythmic whir as it prints out the email she just read. She’s into it now, grinning as she clicks through email after email, feeling more and more comfortable as she gets a glimpse into the cold world of Cersei Lannister. There are no emails between friends and few between her and her son; no, they are largely business emails, and Shireen is amused, though not surprised, to see that the majority of the employees at Lannister Realty bear the name Lannister as well.

There is another thread of emails between Cersei and Tywin, and Shireen prints them out as well; there’s nothing related to Robert or Ned, Cat and Robb’s deaths, but she remembers Renly’s idea about framing Tywin for his own business burning down, and in one thread a clearly drunk Cersei accuses her father of the same thing. Print. Print. Print.

She sighs with a frown; she scrolls and scrolls through emails with timestamps long past the date of Robert’s death, and still there is nothing here. Shireen bites her lip, wishes she didn’t wear gloves so she could bite her nails, because after all of this there’s really nothing to go on. Her eyes flick across the screen, and she’s about to snoop around Cersei’s desktop icons when her gaze lands on the “starred” folder of Cersei’s inbox. _Could you be so stupid, auntie? Could you be so predictable?_ Shireen thinks of Joff’s birthday alarm code and of Castamere, and she clicks the link, opening another slew of emails.

Her eyes dart down the screen, and practically bug out of her head when she reads the subject heading of one thread in particular: PAYMENT OVERDUE, BITCH from a NightWatch@hotmail, and she holds her breath as she opens the email.

“Oh my God,” she says, heart thudding in her chest as she reads and reads. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh shit. Oh my _God_ ,” and her hands shake as she hits alt+P. _Print, you fucker, print your ass off._

“Shireen?” Sansa’s whisper comes out of nowhere, makes Shireen jump in her seat; she’d completely forgotten Sansa is on the line let alone that she is wearing earbuds. “Shireen, you need to hurry, Margaery just called Sandor, they already left the restaurant.”

“I need like five more minutes,” Shireen whispers, watching the print jobs window as it ticks through the pages it’s sending through. “I hit pay dirt, Sansa, but I need more time.”

“Thing is, honey, the restaurant isn’t that far away, and um, they met Joff there and he’s following them. Joff knows _all_ of us, Shireen. You’ve _got_ to hurry.”

“I’ll do my best, but please get Bronn to like, stall them or something. Do anything you can,” she says, yanking open drawers to find more paper, to replace the sheets she’s using, and when she finds what she needs she nearly drops them, she’s so nervous. Shireen holds her breath and slides, as carefully as she can, the fresh sheets of paper behind the already present pages in the printer tray, turns back to the screen to see that the job is nearly finished. She shuts off the light to the office and drums her gloved fingers on the desk, waiting for the print jobs window to show up blank; it’s a long email thread, but it’s what they need, and she has no other choice, they have no other option.

“Shireen, honey, you have to get the fuck out of there,” and behind the sound of Sansa’s voice Shireen can hear Rickon shouting, can hear Sandor talking loudly, forcefully, most likely over the phone to Bronn. Then there is a muffled sound and Shireen can hear, but cannot make out, the sounds of all three of them arguing. She wrenches at the buttons of her pea coat to try and get some cool air against her skin, but the heated house is stifling and offers nothing by way of refreshment.

“Shireen, it’s me,” Sandor’s voice erupts in her ears, and for some reason the fact that he’s taking over the conversation makes her so scared tears spring to her eyes. “You need to move and you need to move now, or else start practicing your backup story. They’ve taken a different route, a shorter one, and they’ll be here in a matter of minutes. We need to be gone, _now._ ”

“Just go,” she snaps, wiping her face with the backs of her hands, knowing they will be wet with tears. “Just go, I’ll um, I’ll run down the street or something. I can even hide somewhere in the yard, just go.”

“Shireen!” It’s Rickon shouting in the background, and she can hear the sound of an engine starting. She lets loose a ragged sob, staring at the printer as it calmly chugs away, thinking it’s printing this slowly on purpose to trap her here. She swears under her breath, wonders how she’s going to explain all these printed emails. “SHIREEN!” And she closes her eyes when the call ends.

 

“Like hell I’m leaving her,” Rickon snarls as Sansa hops out of Sandor’s trunk, her phone in her hand, the truck’s engine already turned over and warming up. “No fucking way,” he shouts. “We don’t leave each other behind!” He’s standing in the dead grass near the brick wall, staring as his sister wrenches open the door to the 4Runner. She turns to face him.

“Get your head out of your ass, Rickon, _look!”_ Sansa points behind him, and when he spins around there are headlights down the long length of Tyne, and he thinks he might throw up. “Shireen’s smart and has a backup story, she can hide, she can run somewhere, but if Joff is coming then there is _no_ way we’re getting out of this without getting arrested, and you know he’ll send you and Sandor back to jail.”

He sees a flash of his sister’s wild and panicked expression, thinks she might be reliving Halloween, and then she practically jumps into the driver’s side, and as if they are one, or because maybe they already _are_ one, Sandor backs up and then rumbles onto the road the same time as Sansa swings the SUV onto the street after him, and Rickon is left standing alone.

There is the sound of honking, and he squints as he stares down the road, chest heaving from the panicked breath he cannot seem to catch, and when one car swerves he can see there aren’t just two of them heading this way but three. Heart in his throat, Rickon grabs his bike and backs it up flush to the wall that guards the periphery of the Lannister’s property, hoping the thick ivy and lack of light will cloak him. There is no way in hell he’s leaving without Shireen, he doesn’t give a shit what happens at this point, but he’d be a liar if he didn’t admit that he is shaking like a leaf from fear when the cars approach the driveway. He closes his eyes as if that can help him hide, presses his back against the brick wall, and his eyelids glow red from the glare of the headlights and then-

 He blinks, staring dumbly across the road into the darkened yard of the neighbor’s, turns to see a caravan of three cars take a sharp right onto Belle Meade Blvd, the third car honking and swerving as if driven by a drunkard or a madman, and then there is silence. Cold, bone-numbing silence, and Rickon is left to stand in the midst of it all, pulse racing, heart pounding, ears ringing from the honking, from the panic welling up inside him.

He has half a mind to call Sandor to try and figure out what the hell just happened, and his hands are in his pockets when he hears the panting and pounding footfalls of someone running, and he turns in time to see Shireen racing towards him across one pool of lamplight, her hair flying behind her, a flutter of papers in her hand. Rickon sprints into the street towards her.

“ _Ric,”_ she says with a dry crack to her voice. “Oh my god, _Rickon_ ,” and then she’s there, flinging herself like a rag into his arms, and there is the rustling of papers in his ears as he’s struck in the back of the head by the stack she has in her hand. He staggers backwards from her impact, nearly falling on his ass, but he is bound up with the strength that come from adrenaline so he simply turns, his arms full of her, and he runs clumsily back to the motorcycle. “You waited for me,” she says against his ear, voice breaking from the jostle of being so hastily transported. “You waited.”

“Of course I did,” he pants as he sets her down by the bike, knees bent so he can gaze directly in her eyes. He holds her face in his hands and hazards a kiss this close to Lannister property lines, because he is that relieved to see her, to have her in his sights again, and for that one sweet moment, with the tousle of her hair next to his face and her hand gripping the sleeve of his jacket, he feels calm. “I’m in love with you, Shir. Where the fuck was I gonna go?”

“Oh,” she says against his mouth, and then she’s laughing, a hysterical, warbling laugh that sounds about as self-possessed as he feels, which is negligible. “Oh, well. I’m in love with you too.”

“Good,” he says, grinning because he cannot help it, not when he receives such delicious validation. “Now we need to get the fuck out of here,” he says, handing Shireen her helmet, and his knees threaten to give way beneath his weight, he is simultaneously so relieved and so terrified. “They drove up but kept going, I have no clue what the hell is going on. They could come back any minute, so saddle up, woman.”

“Stick these in your coat,” she says, straddling the bike after he gets on, and without argument he unzips his leather jacket and shoves the papers under his shirt, partly into the waistband of his jeans before zipping up the jacket over them. He slams his helmet onto his head and walks the bike with his feet back to the street before pulling the clutch and hitting the starter, and the second her helmet’s on and he feels her arms around him, Rickon guns it, and they shoot down the street back home.

He feels the buzz of the phone in his pocket, knows his sister and Sandor are calling him, but he refuses to pull over until they’re safe in his driveway. He feels like a fugitive, thinks they probably both are, and while there is a certain thrill to the feeling, that old familiar surge of excitement that he and Wex used to chase down, there is also the very real fear of losing someone he loves now, a feeling he never had for himself or even his old best friend, and it’s that fear that keeps his hand wrenched forward on the throttle.

It’s a good twenty, thirty minute drive before they’re back at his house on Belmont, and by the time he kills the engine there is a light flurry of snowflakes coming down around them, and he’s grateful for the soft silence of them, the soothing drift as they fall to the ground and melt. He sits for a moment on the bike, his feet planted firmly in the thin layer of gravel in the drive, making sure his hands don’t shake before he kicks the stand into place and the motorcycle tilts slightly to rest on it. Shireen is the first to climb off the bike and take off her helmet, and she shakes her hair out and hugs the helmet to her chest as she looks at him.

“Well _that_ was insane,” she says, and he pulls off his own helmet, slinging it over the handlebar before swinging his leg over the bike and turning to face her, sitting perpendicular on the seat. Shireen sets her helmet on the pillion seat, walks into him and rests her forehead on his shoulder, and he holds her to his chest, smoothing her hair every so often though he prefers to watch the snow land on it.

“Tell me,” he says, and so she does, from the moment she set foot on the driveway to when Sandor scared the hell out of her, from the alarm code to phone call, from finding the emails to Sansa and Sandor’s warning over the phone.

“I think my heart broke in two when I heard you shouting my name,” she says softly, turning her face into the scarf wrapped around his neck, and he smiles, closing his eyes a moment.

“I think my heart broke then, too,” he admits, and he briefly tells her how it felt like someone was trying to rip his own soul out, when it was suggested he leave her behind, and when she pulls back to kiss him he sees tears on her cheeks. He takes off his gloves to wipe them away, buries his naked fingers in her hair when she kisses him there in the dark, in the snow, in the snapping cold of winter.

She continues, burrowing closer into him as the snowfall thickens, and Rickon wonders if it might actually stick; it doesn’t snow all that often in December, and when it does it’s always gone the next day. But neither of them seems inclined to go inside, though Sandor and Sansa have yet to come back and the house affords them all the privacy they want. There seems to be something cleansing and calming in the sharpness of the cold, so he simply wraps his arms tighter around her, listens as she tells him how slow the printer was, how she was sobbing by the time she set the laptop back to sleep and crept out of the office, running halfway across the yard before remembering the spare key was still in her hand, how the honking nearly scared her out of her wits.

“And then there you were, waiting,” she finishes with a sigh, finally pulling back to regard him. He tips his head to the side as he looks at her, sighs out a smile that she returns. “There you were, telling me you love me,” and something tight in his chest uncoils. Rickon pulls his hand from her hair and brushes it down the length of it, dusting away the snow, enjoying the silk of it even to his numbing fingertips.

“There I was,” he echoes, “telling you I love you,” and she grins suddenly, bites her lip, and her eyes lower to his mouth.

“I want to see you say it. I want to watch you say it again,” she whispers, and he laughs, gazing up at the sky and into the pinwheel fall of snow. There are flakes in his lashes that he has to blink away in order to look back at her, and she ruffles his own hair with her hand, sweeping away the snow, but then her gaze is back to his mouth, and Rickon obeys her.

“I love you, Shireen,” he says slowly, looking at her, all of her, the dark of her eyes and the bow of her mouth, the rise of color on her cheeks on this cold, cold night. “I’ve been in love with you since you handed me that brick, and I’m afraid it’s only gotten worse since then.” When he looks back to her eyes she’s waiting for him, and the grin is not so girlish anymore, because maybe it’s less of a grin and more of a want. He reaches out to touch her lips with his fingers, to find what wanting _him_ feels like.

“I’m cold, Rickon,” she murmurs, and he nods, standing up at once.

“Then let me warm you up, honey,” he says.

Her fingers are chilly when they’re finally on his naked skin, when the two of them burrow under the heap of blankets on his bed, but it does nothing to kill his need, simply makes him hiss and press his head back against the pillow when that touch is contrasted with the wet heat of her mouth. They took their time undressing and their clothes are in a more or less orderly heap on the floor by his bed, by the scatter of printed emails, and he has kissed nearly every inch of her, has already wrung out an orgasm from her between her legs with his tongue, and is now sweetly suffering from the same sort of attention now. Shireen is deep beneath the covers, has gotten him so close to coming he’s gritting his teeth, but his hands dive down to her shoulders, beckoning her up because he does not want this to end now, not when he hasn’t even been inside her yet.

She rises up like a mermaid cresting a wave, the covers like sea foam around her hips when she straddles him, her long hair nearly hiding the perfect swells of her breasts, so he brushes her hair back as she sinks down on him. His eyes and his heart and his soul and his brain are full of her movement, the rock of her hips, the way she lets her head sag back, exposing the length of her throat, how wonderfully agonizing it is to be this deep inside her. Rickon bucks his hips up, pushes a cry from her mouth, and her head drops forward, her hands brace against his shoulders, and she drags her hips back until he nearly slides out of her. He grunts, grabs at her ass to force her back to where she belongs, but she’s there for him already, hands to the mattress as she lowers down so her nipples graze his chest. She forces a groan out of him, once, twice, three times until he’s nearly cracked into a million pieces, and then she slows down.

“Rickon Stark is in love with me,” she breathes into his ear, voice curled with a grin, as his hands surf the swells of her hips, and his eyes are closed against the drape of her hair across his face. He skates his fingers up the curve of her spine, presses his palms to her shoulder blades, pinning her against his chest, and his hips lift, tip, rock to meet hers. Rickon works hard to get her gasping, to feel those nails on his chest, that mouth of hers on his, and there is the loveliest mingling of tastes on their tongues.

“Yes, he is,” he says into the fall of her hair, lifting a hand from her back to sweep it away, to fist it at the back of her neck and pull her in for a kiss, for the feel of her tongue against his, the press of her teeth against his lip, and then he rolls her onto her back, earning a gasp of surprise from her, driving a moan from her with a single rough thrust, and her nails dig into his back, making him grin from the pleasure as much from the pain. Rickon kisses her again, and again, and again, before breaking free to look down at her, to push a hand between their bellies, to stoke her up, to get her going, to make those stormy eyes close and that mouth open in a moan. “Now let me show you how _much_ I love you.”

 

Sansa is mildly annoyed when her brother and Shireen finally descend from the attic. She and Sandor have been waiting over forty five minutes for them to emerge from their little love nest, and though they’ve passed the time by drinking wine and starting a fire in the hearth, which Sansa has to admit is more than a little romantic with the snow falling outside and the warmth of Sandor beside her on the living room couch, there are more pressing issues, and Sansa is impatient.

“So there they are,” Sandor rumbles at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, his deep voice spiked through with amusement, and it makes Sansa chuckle though she wants to glare at them. But when they trudge from the hallway, hand in hand, Sansa can’t help but sigh and shake her head with a smile. Shireen is in Rickon’s old Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and a pair of his pajama pants that are so loose and so long on her she can’t even see her feet from beneath the hems, and Rickon is ever doting with her, even in front of an audience.

“Can I get you anything?” Her little brother murmurs, head bent, hand in her hair, and while Sansa knows she should look away, it’s too sweet, too loving of him, and she can’t help but watch them, how Shireen looks down before up into her brother’s eyes, how her fingers curl around his wrist, how it is so clearly a world, there, that no one else on this earth belongs in, that pure little bubble of bliss.

“Wine sounds nice,” Shireen says, and Rickon nods, smiles to her, kisses her as if he were leaving the country instead of the room, and when he finally disappears into the kitchen to fetch her a glass of wine, Shireen sighs with her eyes closed and then turns to gaze into the fire, apparently forgetting that there are two other people in the room.   

“Hey there,” Sansa says, and Shireen jumps and gasps, wheels around to look at them, and then she falls apart into giggling, girlish laughter and apology.

“I’m sorry, I was um, I was lost in my thoughts for a minute there,” Shireen says as she curls up in one of the wingbacks, one leg tucked beneath her and the other bent and hugged to her chest. Sansa loosens herself from Sandor’s arm over her shoulders and sits forward, touches Shireen’s knee. There is something she needs to get off of her chest.

“No, actually, I want to apologize to _you_ , for bailing on you like we did,” Sansa says, tipping her head and glancing towards Sandor, who nods in agreement. “If we had known Bronn would start driving like a maniac we would have stayed. I guess he made them think they were being followed, so they ended up driving around in circles for 20 minutes trying to lose him.” The guilt she felt when Margaery texted this to them on their way back home was palpable, is one reason she has been so irritably impatient to talk to them, because she can remember Shireen’s panicked voice over the phone, can still see the horror on her brother’s face when she suggested they leave. It ate at her for the entire ride home, has been eating at her as they kissed and snuggled and God knows what else up in his room all this time, and the apology has been sitting fat and heavy on her chest for over an hour.

“It’s okay,” Shireen says. “It was a really intense couple of minutes, I understand. Plus, you know, Rickon stayed,” and there is that faraway smile, and the light in her eyes when Rickon comes back in with two glasses of wine, handing one to Shireen before dropping to sit with his back against her chair, and Sansa shakes her head in disbelief as her brother’s eyes close and his head tips back when Shireen runs her fingers through his hair. It is clear that something has happened between them; perhaps the close call at Cersei’s inspired a little dose of reality when it comes to how they feel about one another, and then she’s blushing, thinking of Sandor and her falling into one another, wrapped up together in her bed on All Saint’s Day.

“Anyways,” Sandor says carefully. “Next time we’re sticking together, no one needs to go through that kind of shit alone,” and whether he means to or not, when she leans back against him, his arm around her shoulders flexes, pulling her closer to him, because he remembers just as well as Sansa does.

“I agree,” Rickon says, and Sansa frowns, wondering if there is chastisement there though his eyes are still closed and he has a dreamy sort of look on his face as Shireen sifts her fingers through his hair and along his temple

“So, Cersei’s emails,” Sansa says gently after watching them for a couple of moments.

“Oh!” Shireen says before gracefully getting to her feet without disrupting Rickon’s repose. His eyes open and he grasps her ankle with his hand, making her pause and smile down to him.

“I can go,” he offers but she shakes her head and disappears into the hall, and they can hear the light tread of her as she runs upstairs.

“Well _you_ two certainly seem pleased with each other,” Sandor says dryly, and Rickon grins shamelessly at him.

“Oh yeah, I’d say we’re pretty pleased,” her brother says, and Sansa rolls her eyes, is saved from further innuendo about her brother’s sex life by the sound of Shireen on the stairs again, snaring Rickon’s attention by the simple act of reentering the room. There’s a small sheaf of papers in her hands, and Sansa gets goose bumps thinking how they belong to Cersei, that she went to a store and bought the paper with her own hands and now they are here in their house.

“Okay, so there was some pretty amusing stuff between Tywin and Cersei; it was pretty obvious she was drunk as a skunk, misspelling everything as she accused her own dad of the arson that uh, that we did,” Shireen says, grinning when Rickon looks up at her with a grin of his own. “Renly called in an anonymous tip to the cops suggesting as much, so we could, I don’t know, mail these to the police too. I don’t know, I just decided to print them,” she says, leaning forward to hand those printouts over to Sansa, who skims them before passing them to Sandor.

“Next I read some pretty suggestive stuff that Cersei did kill Robert for the money in order to help bail her dad out of a bind.” Shireen hands those over as well. “But _this_ thread is by far the most interesting,” she says with no small amount of triumph to her voice, and Sansa’s hands are trembling as she holds the pages so Sandor can read with her, so they can read together how Cersei Lannister stiffed some man she hired to kill Robert, the same man she hired to kill the Starks, all because he botched the murder of Robb Stark.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Dangerous - Big Data feat. Joywave


	19. Never Mess With Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang moves the final piece into position. Someone else hits rock bottom, but someone is there to catch them. Lovelovelove.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115064090813/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-19-never-mess-with)

“So let me get this straight,” Margaery says from her perch on the arm of Bronn’s chair as they watch him create a new email account, and though she is jaunty as ever in her bright red hat and multi-colored scarf, she’s as bleary-eyed as the rest of them. It’s the morning after Shireen infiltrated the Lannister house, and they are wasting no time in tracking down this NightWatch person. They’re tucked in the far back corner of a coffee house called Fido, sitting in a small knot around Margaery’s laptop bright and early on Saturday morning, blinking in the brilliant morning light, made all the brighter from the snow on the ground and in the air, and all six of them are nursing coffee.  “Not only did y’all find emails that sort of suggest this woman did commit some sort of crime, but you found emails between her and a  _hit_  man?”

“Yep,” Shireen says from Rickon’s lap, and he smiles to hear the pride in that one small word. She did good, real good, last night, and he’s as proud of her as she is of herself, if not more. It confirms all those suspicions he had, underlines how he’s always known that she’s a badass. He yawns and rests his cheek against her shoulder, closing his eyes briefly. It’s eight o’clock in the morning, and Rickon’s had roughly five hours’ sleep; Shireen is better off than he is, though it was hell trying to get her out of his bed not even an hour ago.

“For God’s sake, man, don’t use your real name,” Margaery says, leaning in and pointing to the screen, and Bronn scowls, flicks his hand at her hair that hangs loose in his face from under her wool cap. He rubs his eyes and gives himself a shake before backspacing and making up another less incriminating email address.

“It wasn’t on purpose. I’m tired, that’s all,” he says, “since someone doesn’t take no for an answer at one o’clock in the morning.” He does look tired, from Rickon’s vantage point, but he doesn’t exactly look too torn up over it, either.

“There were no complaints last night,” she says airily, and he snorts and shakes his head as Shireen turns back to look at Rickon with raised eyebrows, and he grins, lifting a hand to tuck her hair more securely behind her ear. Bronn hints at the kind of night he and Shireen had, all whispers and kisses, all arched backs and open mouths, and when he closes his eyes again he can see her thighs, the sweep of her hair on his pillow, almost shivers at the memory of her teeth on his skin, the smell of her on his sheets.

“I can practically hear what you’re thinking,” she whispers, and he opens his eyes to see her grinning at him. She’s in his watchman’s cap again, has all but declared it as hers, which is just fine with him, and he tugs playfully on the cuff of it.

“I can’t help myself,” he says, whispering  _Because I love yo_ u in her ear, and it’s a fine thing to see how those words make her expression melt, how those words make her come undone. He’s as dopey as a puppy whenever she says it back, so he supposes they’re fools for each other, and nothing could make him happier.

“All right,” Bronn says finally, sitting back and glancing around Margaery on her perch to Sandor and Sansa, looking to Rickon and Shireen on his right, and Rickon mentally shakes himself. Even now with this serious shit about to go down, it’s hard to pay attention when Shireen is on his lap. “What’s this guy’s email?”

“NightWatch at Hotmail,” Sansa says, glancing down to one of the printouts in her hand, and Bronn makes her spell it all out as Margaery runs her fingers fondly through his hair. “Now, what do you want me to say?”

“You know a woman who has used his services,” Sandor says. “And you are interested in the same. Only use her name if you absolutely have to, we don’t want to scare him off considering she hasn’t paid him for- well, you know,” he says lamely, flicking a gray glance Sansa’s way. Rickon’s sister’s chin drops, and once more it strikes him, the magnitude of what they’re doing, the gravity of emailing their parents’ and brother’s murderer.

“Yeah, and tell him you want to meet soon. Like, tomorrow,” Shireen adds. “There’s a Comfort Inn by the Waffle House off White Bridge Road. Tell him you want to meet him there.”

Bronn types with his forefingers, and though he hunts and pecks at the keys he does so quickly enough, and soon he’s scooting back from the computer to let everyone read what he’s written.

“Perfect,” Sansa says.

“Send it,” Margaery says, and when he does they all sit back, and half of them sigh, which makes all of them chuckle.

“So now what? Do we wait here? How long will it take this guy to reply?” Shireen asks.

“Do hit men get up early on Saturdays?” Rickon wonders, because he’s had to get up early for this shit, and Bronn laughs. “What, it’s a valid question,” he snaps, and Bronn just shakes his head, pats Margaery on the ass to get her up off his chair, stands and stretches. “I’ll be right back. I need more caffeine. Anyone want anything?” Sansa and Sandor both immediately request more coffee, Sansa groggily mentioning how she has to go to work across the street in forty minutes, and when Rickon studies them thoughtfully, notes the dark circles under their eyes and the soft looks that fill the air like butterflies and honey between them, he thinks probably everyone got lucky last night.

“So, M, tell me again about that night with Joff at the club,” Shireen grins, because while there is no love lost for Joff Lannister amongst them all, she seems to get the most pleasure from hearing of his suffering. Margaery throws her head back and laughs, caring not a whit that the few people sitting scattered throughout the room look up at her, and even Sansa, his poor sister who had the roughest time during all of this, laughs along with her to see such wicked, ruthless, shameless triumph when it blooms on Margaery’s face.

“Oh, God, that was such a fun night. You know, I’ve gotten revenge on assholes like him before, but it’s never been quite so unforgettable. I’m going to have to remember that play,” she says, and she goes on to paint for them the picture of her picking Joff’s pocket and finding the roofies in a plastic baggy, deciding then and there that that was what she was going to do.

“I mean, I figured I’d get him really drunk and steal a bunch of his shit at his place, you know,” she says casually, as if she is talking about a trip to the grocery store. “But then I had brought the laxatives in case he got too handsy, and the combination of passing out and shitting your brains out? Well,” she says as if that explains everything, and it makes Rickon laugh, because it does explain everything; it’s not as good as kicking his ass again, but he’s watched the video of Joff crapping his pants about a hundred times and it still makes him cackle.

Bronn is still in line for coffee when an email appears in his inbox after Margaery refreshes the page for the fifth time, and the laughter dies on everyone’s lips as they all scoot forward as one to stare at it, though no one has the courage to click the link and see what it says. There it is, NightWatch@hotmail in Bronn’s shiny new inbox, and Rickon has to suppress a shudder. It is this easy to put a price on a man’s head.

“I just got goose bumps,” Sansa whispers, and she and Rickon exchange a lingering glance, and yes they were joking around, yes they were laughing, but the pain shoots up like weeds, choking the lightheartedness to fill the space between brother and sister. This is the man who killed Shireen’s uncle; this is the man Cersei Lannister hired to kill Ned, Cat and Robb Stark. While he doesn’t have gooseflesh like his sister he does feel a sick tingle slither down his spine, followed by the same hot sticky dread he got years ago when they slapped the cuffs on him in the Circle K parking lot, and finally it is Rickon who leans forward over Shireen and clicks on the email.

 

NightWatch@hotmail

Re: Business proposition

$10,000. Comfort Inn on White Bridge. Tomorrow night, 7pm. Put room under name Mr. Smith.

JS

 

It is a short and creepy email, it is blood chilling to hear how clinically cold he can be about this, to know that this is the type of exchange during which the lives of his parents and brother were bartered away.  Rickon looks up and his sister is clearly as disturbed, and even though Sandor is standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders, and is always that comforting strength for her, there are still tears in her eyes that she wipes away with the back of her hand.

“What a monster,” she whispers, and they all nod. Margaery quietly clears her throat, subdued from the sudden change in everyone’s demeanor, from the somber switch to the atmosphere.

“Do you want me to call my friend now?” she asks his sister quietly, and Sansa sniffs, wipes her cheeks again and nods.

“Yeah. What’d you say her name was?”

“Brienne Tarth,” Margaery says with a soft smile. “She’s a good friend and I know she’ll treat this with the utmost care and sensitivity. I promise you.”

“It’s weird, though, you knowing a police detective. Does she know what you uh, what you do for a living?” Rickon asks, and Margaery gives them a beatific smile.

“We used to be roommates, and she kicked me out when she found out that my career path was a little um, you know, at odds with hers. But then there was a situation, sort of like with Joff; this asshole named Hyle was less than kind to her, let’s just put it that way. I got him back for her, and she has since overlooked my shortcomings,” Margaery says serenely. “Anyways, I’ll give her a call. It’s short notice but her promotion is a new one and cracking a case like this will be like Christmas came early for her.”

“All right, go for it,” Rickon says, and he pats Shireen’s thigh to tell her to get up so he can stand.

“Hey honey, you gonna answer his email?” she says, nodding her head to the email that by all rights should be as bland as it looks, instead of being a bid for murder. _Now_ Rickon shudders.

“Shit, I almost forgot. What do you say to a hit man?” He is loath to answer, and a glance to his sister shows just as much leery hesitation, and her fingers shake when she lifts a hand to comb her hair from her face.

“Here, let me,” Margaery says, settling into Bronn’s empty chair. They all get to their feet, hunched over, crowding around her to watch as she types out a reply, equally stony and brief, and Rickon is secretly glad; it is one thing to read the email from this man, it would be another to write him, to actually reach out and make contact. They are all staring at the email exchange, shoulder to shoulder, and Sansa gives Rickon’s hand a squeeze of solidarity. They share a look that to Rickon is full of determination as much as it is trepidation, full of grit as much as it is fear.

“So what did I miss?” Bronn says from behind them, making all of them jump, but it is Shireen and Sansa who gasp so loudly that when Rickon turns around, it is in time to see Bronn startle from the sudden outburst, lose his grip on the three to-go cups. One of them falls to the floor, spattering his shoes with hot coffee, and Bronn’s shoulders slump and he mutters a string of obscenities, handing Sandor and Sansa the un-spilled cups. Margaery comes to his rescue with a wad of napkins, crouching down at his feet to mop up the mess but she’s laughing pitilessly at the sight of him.

“Jesus, baby, I can’t take you anywhere, can I?” 

 

As much as she loves Rickon, as much as she misses him and craves him when they’re apart, as deep and desperate their goodbye kiss is before she takes off for home, watching him do five loads of laundry in his basement after only getting a few hours’ sleep is not something Shireen can cheerfully take on right now. She needs a nap and a shower, and if she’s honest with herself, she needs a quiet moment or two to marinate in the fact that Rickon Stark loves her back, not to mention a chance to tell Renly that she successfully snuck into the Lannisters’ and struck gold.

 _I’ve been in love with you since you threw that brick_ , he said, and just thinking of it makes her grin, makes her grip the steering wheel with a sudden surge of love borne strength. Though it’s been snowing off and on since last night when he told her the ways of his heart, none of it is really sticking to the streets, and she’s grateful for it considering how lost in her thoughts she is. She remembers playing at the foolish game of he loves me, he loves me not when she met Edric in college, lounging on her stomach in the numerous stretches of grass on campus, but now she knows there’s no point to it, because there is no risk of plucking a _he loves me not_ petal from any flower that grows on earth. Rickon loves her, and so all the daisies in the world are safe from Shireen’s doubt, because she has none, not now and never again.

 “Ren? Hey, Ren, where are you?” She tosses her keys on the little foyer table before unbuttoning her coat and hanging both it and her purse in the hall closet and heading for the kitchen; it’s close to noon and the lack of sleep makes her ravenous. There is nothing more thrilling to her right now than the idea of a big lunch and an hours-long nap; Rickon said he’d come over tonight, and if she has learned anything, it is that it’s impossible to sleep the night through while lying next to him.

She makes a beeline for the fridge, having had only coffee so far today and she is beyond excited for whatever gourmet fare Renly’s left her, but she stops dead in her tracks at the mess that greets her, glances at the clock on the microwave to confirm how early it still is. It’s not even eleven in the morning and she already sees evidence of bloody marys here amongst the dirty dishes strewn across the counter, an empty martini glass, a half full wine glass, a lowball glass, a saucepan still half full of hard spaghetti balled up in the bottom. There is a rind of brie cheese congealed to a wooden cutting board, a fork on the floor, and though she’s only spent two nights away at Rickon’s there is a sink full of dishes. If she didn’t know better she’d think he had one rager of a house party in her absence, but since she does know better she bites her lip and thinks of how she’s neglected her sweet pussycat of an uncle.

“Renly?” She calls, turning to head for the den, but then a movement catches her eye outside, and she’d laugh if she didn’t know there was something seriously, seriously off about him.  He’s sitting outside in a ridiculous lumberjack style hat, the plaid ones with the ear flaps, and is turned just so at the patio table that he cannot see her, but she can see the cords of his headphones disappearing under his ear flaps, can tell he’s belting out some sort of music, and now that she’s watching him she can faintly hear his voice. He’s got a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, is sitting in a sweatshirt and his pajama pants on a cold as hell wrought iron chair as if it were a balmy spring day and not a chilly cold-snap morning in December.

She hugs herself as she slides open the door and steps out into the morning frostiness; there’s no snow falling for the time being, and while the majority of the stuff on the ground just melts away, the surrounding patio chairs have a good inch or two of snowfall collected on their seats, the snow looking like lacework as it clings only to the iron pattern, falling through the holes to melt against the relatively warmer brick below. “What in the hell has come over you, mister?”

Renly jumps at the sound of her intrusion, yanking the buds out of his ears. “I, my little lady, am out here jamming to some Patsy Cline.” His voice is a slow, thick slur.

“Is um, is that music a person can really jam to?” She thinks of the handful of Patsy songs she knows, and not a one makes her want to jam out. They mostly make her want to cry or brood.

“I can do whatever I want,” he says, punctuating his statement with a poke of his cigar to the morning air.

“Yeah, that’s clearly obvious, considering the train wreck you’ve left in the kitchen,” she says, bending down to sweep the snow from the chair next to him. “And the fact that you’re drunk before noon,” she says with a sigh as she sits down with a shiver. “Renly, what the fuck’s going on?”

He turns to look at her in full and she can see how gray he is now from the booze and the crappy hours, from the agoraphobia that used to belong only to her. He’s a beautiful man, a thicket of lovely brown hair that matches his manicured scruff, the Baratheon blue eyes, the dimples and smile of a laughing, lighthearted soul. But the Renly she sees now is a shadow of his former self, and while his brother’s murder and the subsequent cover up took its toll, she wonders now if this is her fault, too.

“Nothing, sweetie. That’s uh, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” He smiles, and someone who didn’t know him would think he’s fine, but he’s not. There’s no twinkle and crinkle to his usually merry eyes, and his laugh is hollow. “There’s nothing. You’ve got love, everyone’s got love, but I’ve got nothing. I don’t even got any brothers, anymore. Stannis, your daddy, he’s gone and buried going on five years. There’s uh, there’s Robert’s death and the funeral I was too scared to go to. Then there’s the fact that I got your boyfriend’s family killed. So, you know, nothing. There’s fucking nothing, and whatever there was I ruined, I destroyed. I’m alone, I’m a shitty brother, I’m a murderer. I’m no better than Cersei fucking Lannister.”

And then her uncle starts to cry. She has lived with him for so long but this is unexpected, and when Renly folds over onto himself, looking smaller than she has ever before seen him, Shireen finds tears springing to her eyes. There is an ugly, screeching metallic sound as she drags her heavy chair towards him, but she’s almost thankful for it, because he knows when she’s close enough to hug him, so when he drunkenly lurches over the side of his chair for her, she’s got him. She plucks the cigar from his hand, chucks it unceremoniously to the bricks, and wraps her arms around him.

“Come on now, Ren, you had no idea, no idea at all what would happen,” she says, and it’s the filthiest trap she’s ever been in, trying to absolve one loved one for the pain inflicted on another. It is no new thought to her, no shiny new bauble to inspect when she thinks of the sole reason Baratheons know Starks these days.

“I did know, Shir, I did,” he sobs, he slurs. His arms are dead drunken weight on her shoulders, and for the first time in her life she knows how it feels to hold someone up literally and figuratively. _Poor Renly_ , she thinks, _I’ve been hanging onto you for years and never once did I try and reciprocate_. “Ned Stark told me he’d never investigated a murder before. He told me, and he was hesitant, so I just offered him more money.”

“It’s not your fault he accepted, though. Come on, you have to see that.”

“But it still happened,” he cries. His voice is hoarse from the cigar smoke, and he coughs mid-cry, retches, and she pulls away in time for him to be sick all over the cold bricks between their feet. “Ah, fuck,” he says, and then he throws up again. Shireen rubs his back with a frown, and when she’s got him more or less securely hunched over the table in his chair, she bounds indoors under the pretense of fetching him water.

“Ric,” she says with a sigh of relief when he answers his phone. “I need you to come over, quick. Renly’s drunk as a skunk and throwing up outside. I um, I hate to ask, but I don’t think I can move him all by myself, and I need to get him cleaned up and inside.”

“I’m on it, honey,” he says.

“Come to the backyard, please, and hurry, it’s cold out there, and I have no idea how long he’s been sitting outside.” There’s as much mess outside as in the kitchen, though it’s beer cans and cigar butts instead of dishes and glassware.

“Hold tight, I’ll be there in twenty.”

He’s true to his word, and she’s sitting there rubbing a muttering, incoherent Renly’s back when she hears the rumble of a motorcycle, faint and then roaring as it comes up the street and driveway, and then the shutting off of an engine. In the sudden silence following it she then hears the flick of a lighter.

Rickon climbs the subtle slope from driveway to backyard around the side of the house, puffing on a cigarette, and she leaps to her feet at the welcome sight of him. Once he’s on the bricked patio, which she has hosed off in the time it took him to get here, once she’s safely tucked beneath his welcoming, outstretched arm, he sighs, a cloud of smoke and warm breath above her head.

“Well, damn,” he says, and now Shireen is left to sigh.

“He’s in a bad way, Ric. He um, he’s feeling a lot of guilt about everything, more than I ever realized. I don’t think I’ve been paying him much attention. I feel bad,” she adds lamely, and Rickon squeezes her shoulders.

“Hey, Sandor told me he’s going through some deep personal stuff. There’s probably more on his plate than any of us realize. Plus, you know, he’s alone.”

“He is _not_ alone, he has _me_ ,” she says, but it feels like a lie the second it leaves her lips. Her uncle has always been there for her whenever she’s depressed, coming to the rescue with stupid movies, dumber jokes, hysterically expensive takeout orders just for the sake of cheering her up. But she’s been too full of love and herself to realize she’s left him to his own devices; she’s _seen_ his devices, and they’re not healthy ones. Shireen hangs her head.

Rickon kisses her temple and takes another few drags of his cigarette as he releases her and walks around Renly’s limp form. He exhales, stubs his cigarette out in the overcrowded ceramic cigar ashtray and squats down in front of him. Shireen bites her fingernails from her vantage point behind Renly, watching her boyfriend’s face as he gazes up into her uncle’s, his blue eyes pale as ice on this winter day. It is a look of concern, but of frank, honest assessment as well. He looks much older than his years with an expression like that, and though she’s five years his senior she thinks he’s probably seen a lot more than she ever has.

“Hey, man,” he says, snapping his fingers in Ren’s face. “Hey. You smell like shit, we need to clean you up. Wake up, brother.”

“Fuck,” Renly slurs, his voice like sludge. “Fuck off,” he finally manages after a few attempts. Rickon sighs and stands up.

“We need to get him in the shower. Do me a favor and start one while I get him up and to his feet. Is there a shower on the ground floor?” He’s hopeful when he asks, chuckles with a shake of his head when she tells him no.

“I’m so sorry, Rickon, I just, I don’t have anyone else to call.”

“Hey,” he says, coming to her, cupping her face in his hands. “How many goddamn times, Shir? I’m here for you, okay? I love you like crazy, this is no big deal. Now just, you know, just go start the shower, I’ll drag his ass up there.”

And he does. By the time she has the water hot and running she can hear Rickon grunting with the weight of Renly, one his arms slung over his shoulders and his body pressed tight against Rickon’s, and she meets him halfway up the stairs to help with her drunken uncle.

“Thanks,” Rickon says, face red from the exertion. He’s tall but he’s slim, and she’s pretty sure he and Renly are well matched weight for weight. Renly mutters nonsense as she helps the two of them up the rest of the way, and her uncle reeks of booze and sweat and vomit and sorrow. By the time they get him to the master bathroom, already steaming and foggy from moisture and heat, Shireen is panting.

“I um, I don’t, I’ve um,” she stammers, and then she sighs. “I’m sorry, I am so, so sorry, Rickon, but I’ve never seen him naked.” Rickon laughs then, so sharp and sudden that even drunken Renly jerks awake, blinks owlishly in the bright light, bleary and confused at this sudden change in location. But despite his laugh, Rickon is looking on her with humor, warmth and love, and it makes her smile weakly back at him.

“Prison, Shireen. I’ve been to prison and I’ve seen plenty, trust me. This is nothing.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers as he drags Renly’s vomit-soiled shirt up and over his head. Her uncle sways and slumps against the counter, nearly slides down to the floor before he’s propped up with Rickon’s forearm. “I’m so sorry, honey. I love you.”

“I love you too, baby, but the one we need to feel sorry for is this fucker,” he says, grimacing at the scent of puke once the shirt is tugged off of her uncle. He tosses it to the floor, just as Renly tells him, cheerfully as he can, to go fuck himself.

He showers her uncle with frank efficiency and no limit of good natured obscenities and ribbings, best as she can hear from the hallway, hollers at one point when Renly clearly splashes the hell out of him, and she’s ready with dry clothes for both men once the experience is over. Renly is moderately more coherent after the jolt of hot water beating down on him, and when they all three of them settle onto his bed in his room, his head lolls back and forth between them, Rickon on his left, Shireen on his right.

“’M sorry,” he mumbles back and forth, first to her and then to Ric, and Shireen forces water on him until he drinks half the glass. “’M sorry, ‘m such a fucking loser. I hate it,” he says.

“You are not a loser, okay? But no more booze, Ren,” Shireen says with a shake of her head, one he mirrors with near comical exaggeration from the remnants of alcohol. He looks like a puppet, wagging his head back and forth, his eyes as big as saucers. “No more, not until you get over this shit and stop trying to drown your sorrows.”

“Hey Renly, I think I know something that’ll help you feel better,” Rickon says, flipping through channels on his bedroom TV, gazing at the screen instead of the grown man he’s just carried upstairs and helped shower. “We’re gonna nail the uh, the hit man guy tomorrow. You should be there. You’ve been here since the start. I think it would be good for you.”

“Yeah,” Renly nods, slumping down on the pillows. “Yeah, thanks man,” he mumbles, and then he’s asleep, a grunting, rattling snore of a sleep. Wordlessly she holds out her hand and her boyfriend takes it without hesitation, and their clasped hands rest on the rise and fall of Renly’s chest.

Shireen glances up to Ric, who is looking down at Renly with a concerned frown, but he smiles easily enough when he lifts his gaze and sees her watching him. She smiles back. “Thank you so much, honey,” she says, which he waves off, and as they watch TV before they both of them drift to sleep on either side of her uncle, she thinks of daisies, how every petal says _He loves me, he loves me, he loves me._

 

Sansa comes home later that evening from her new job, standing there brushing snow from her shoulders as she steps inside, and she’s thinking of cooking something homey tonight, thinking of the hot bath she’ll have, but all thoughts fly out of her head like a flock of birds when Sandor strides out of the hallway and into the front room, full of purpose, gaze flicking up and down as if assessing her. He’s bare-chested and his hair is still damp from the shower, and she thinks of wild men, barbarian kings and savage warriors, and there is a smolder to his gray eyes that steals her breath away. She looks on him with silent approval until he pushes his broad chest against hers, firm enough so she staggers back from his strength, but then he’s caught her with one hand around the waist while the other curls around her purse strap, fingers grazing her shoulder before he drags it off and drops it to the floor.

“Oh my god, what on earth,” she starts, but then he’s loosening and removing the scarf from her throat, unbuttoning her wool coat with enough force to rock her forward, his gaze focused on the task. “ _Ohmygod_ ,” she whispers when he finally lifts his eyes to her, and Sansa feels weak in the knees to see the hunger there, his kisses doing nothing to strengthen her. Suddenly she’s shivering in the open doorway on trembling legs, wearing nothing but a cap sleeved dress, a pair of knee high argyle socks and round-toed heels. He slams the door, locking it, and startles another gasp out of her by bending his knees and grabbing her by the backs of her thighs, hoisting her up in his arms so that she has little choice but wrap her legs around him.

“Mine,” he grunts as he hefts her to improve his grip on her, kissing her as he turns on his heel, and now she’s laughing, though it’s weak and thin and shivery thanks to this bold display of want from him. These are becoming more frequent in the weeks they’ve come together, and while she loves the slow sweetness he offers her there is a different way her body responds to these rougher, truer cravings of his. She’s already responding, hitching her legs higher on his torso, mouth so open on his that she’s surprised either of them is breathing.

Sandor’s skin is still hot from his shower, she can feel it on her cold thighs around him and her arms draped over his shoulders, and she’s half tempted to stop him so she can bathe too, but he’s passing the bathroom in the direct route to his room, and then he’s tossing her onto his bed, all soft flannel sheets and a handful of quilts and mismatched blankets that have been neatly pulled back in anticipation of this.

“Sly fox,” she grins as she sits back, legs bent at the knee and hanging off the edge of his bed. He quickly undresses himself, and with the animal speed and grace she knows that are a part of him, now that he shares everything with her and not just the careful, self-possessed side, Sandor has dragged her panties off and tugged her dress up and over her head, and he moans when he sees she’s worn no bra today.

“Definitely mine,” he says, lowering to his knees between her thighs, sweeping a hand from hip to breast, cupping one before he stretches out the length and the strength of him above her, and his skin is so hot that her body is torn between melting beneath him and shivering all the more from the contrast it sets against the cool, snowy evening. She inhales sharply, deeply, filling her lungs with the scent of him when he presses his open mouth to hers, and their fingers brush as they both reach down to guide him inside her, and that alone makes her murmur  _I love you_  into his mouth, and that makes him groan.

“Sandor, wait,” she pants out between thrusts, “my heels, my stockings, they’re, I, oh, _oh_. I didn’t, they’re still on,” and to prove it she bends her knees, dragging her legs up his thighs and sides, and he moves his hips harder from the sensation.

“Leave them on,” he says, and she laughs in her throat when he grabs her leg and draws it up, pushes on the back of her thigh until her knee is pressed against her upper arm, and he turns his head to kiss the seam of stocking that comes just above the swell of her calf.

“Every man loves a school girl, hmm,” she murmurs, eyes sliding closed when he moves her leg over his shoulder, and she’s stunningly full of him in this position, achingly so, to the perfect point just beneath pain, over and over again as he moves above her, inside her until she’s gripping the headboard behind her and practically screaming, wondering when sheer fucking became the same thing as making love, because there’s no difference anymore, not when it’s hot and thick and sweet and raw like this.

“I love  _you_ ,” he reminds her, voice a loud growl so as to be heard over the sounds she’s making, “to hell with other girls. I only love you,” he says before she’s drunk from the taste of his tongue and how he seems to breathe in her soul, and she wraps her other leg around his waist, listening to him spill the ramblings of love into her ear, as they mingle with the dirty things he’s thought of doing to her all day long. Her skin’s as warm and flushed as his now, fire in her heart stoked as much by his words and his love as it is by what he’s doing to her, and when she comes a few minutes later he cries out, a rough, choked cry of  _Oh God, yes_ , and Sansa has to wonder how it’s possible to miss someone so much after just eight hours, how it’s possible to need someone so very, very much.

“Well that was a pleasant surprise,” she says later, both of them burrowed deep in his covers, though her shoes and knee highs have at last been removed, and he rumbles a chuckle that she can feel in her ribs. He’s curved like a bow in bed, his head resting on her chest, knees bent, thighs tucked up by her rear, and she has her legs draped over his. It’s a luxurious weight to hold him to her breast, a lovely thing to brush his hair with her fingers, to drag her fingertips with curious wonder along the edge where the scars meet his hairline the way the shoreline meets the sea. She’s snug and she’s warm here where it smells so much like him she could get lost in it. There is the soapy, woodsy smell she’s been drawn to since she’s known him, but also the heady, sleepy musk of him, the smell of clean, crisp sweat from when he comes home from work.

“I hate that you’re working weekends now,” he murmurs, lifting his head to her mingled sorrow and joy, for he does so to kiss his way from her clavicle to her mouth. “I just got you and now you’ll be gone when I’m home, and vice versa.”

“I know,” she sighs. “But it’s only until the weekend before Christmas, and that’s only three weeks from now, and then one of their regular employees is leaving, and I’ll be able to fill in for her.” It’s exciting that she’s gotten this job, even though she’s wildly overqualified, but her blossoming relationship with Sandor is far more of a thrill, and they share the same sentiment over being pulled apart for work.

“You’re not working tomorrow are you?” He asks it lightly enough, but it’s there, the real reason he asks, and when she closes her eyes he’s already straightening his legs and pulling her to his chest. “I’m sorry to bring it up, love, I just want to make sure you’re prepared for this,” he says, kissing her forehead.

“I’m okay. I work ‘til five, so I’ll have time to you know,” she says, trailing off. “Decompress.”

“Unwind,” he suggests.

“Man up,” she grins.

“Gird your loins,” he says with a laugh.

“Leave it to you to mention my loins,” she says, and then she shrieks as he lowers his hand to squeeze her thigh right above the knee, a ticklish spot he has found and proclaims to adore, is half panicked he will be merciless and tickle her until she has to flee the warmth of his bed, but she is lucky tonight, and he brings his hand back up her body to hook into the dip of her waist.

“But you’re really ready for this, Sansa? You are prepared to sit in a hotel room and watch and listen to a man confess to killing your family?”

“I don’t know if anyone is ready for that, but I’m ready to get to the bottom of it. I’m ready for justice, Sandor. I’m ready for these people to pay. They owe us a debt, me and Rickon, Arya and Bran. I’m ready to see it paid in full.”

 

 

 

Chapter title taken from Never Mess With Sunday - Yppah


	20. Between Us And Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet JS (::wink::). Closure. Home.
> 
> AND THE NEXT TWO CHAPTERS ARE ALL FLUFF.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115096146978/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-20-between-us-and-them)

“Okay, are you sure y’all are going to be okay with this? We don’t usually let people tag around for this sort of thing, especially if they’re so closely involved,” Brienne says, and Sandor thinks this tall woman is likely a good judge of character because it is Rickon to whom she aims this question. They are nine of them here in this hotel room, joined by Renly and the two detectives, and whether sitting or standing all of them have their arms crossed over their chests, save for the detective working the equipment. Rickon gives a tense shrug.

“Sure, we’re fine.”

“If you say so, kid,” Brienne says, turning to watch as her partner Pod Payne, the same detective who informed Sansa of the murders, adjusts the volume on the little monitor. It’s eerie to stare at the room on the black and white screen, the room where in just twenty minutes Bronn will sit and casually discuss the hit on his girlfriend with the man who killed Robert Baratheon and three Starks.

Sandor glances to Renly; he and Shireen are seated side by side on one of the two queen beds, sitting up against the headboard, and the man is biting his nails. It’s strange to see the usually chipper and irreverent Renly so silently anxious, and though Bronn and Margaery have never before met him, it’s obvious that at least Margaery senses it in him. She sits down on the bed and flashes him one of her dazzler smiles, the kind that bring most men to their knees, but it only seems to amuse Renly for reasons recently made clear to Sandor.

“Hey there sugar, don’t worry, we’re gonna get this guy, just you wait,” she says sweetly, stretching her arm over Shireen’s legs to pat him on the knee. “And then we can throw a big party and get shitfaced.” Renly glances at her hand and smirks, which does not go unnoticed by M, and then he puts his arm around his niece and gives her a genuine, if not reserved smile.

“That’s a party I’d gladly attend,” he says. “But only Coke for me,” he adds hastily, giving Shireen a curious glance. He remembers the man’s quip on Thanksgiving about his niece swiping his drinks and Sandor thinks there must be something there; he has gone through his own struggles with the devil in the bottle, and he hopes Renly can keep, or get, his shit together.

Sandor looks around with a frown, realizing the absence of flame red hair and the willowy presence of the woman he loves, though he did not hear the room door open. He finds her in the bathroom, splashing water on her cheeks, careful to avoid her mascara, and he shakes his head with a clenched jaw; he knew this would be too much for her.

“Sansa,” he says, but it’s a brave face she gives him, even though she is clearly distressed.

“Hey, big man,” she says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, though this new term of endearment makes him smile back. “I’m okay, I’m just, it’s all just a little overwhelming,” she confesses, walking into his chest when he beckons her in with a wave of his hand. “I wish the emails were enough to get him and Cersei.”

“Same here,” he sighs, running his hand down her back. It is evidence, yes, but it is also evidence of their involvement, and to step forward would be admitting that Shireen broke in, could link them to Sandor’s brutal beating of Joff and right down the timeline to Rickon’s own dalliance that night downtown so long ago. That is where detectives Tarth and Payne came in, thanks to Margaery’s connections. They need this guy to state his crimes, his job, his willingness to commit another one, and they desperately want Bronn to get out of him that he killed Robert Baratheon and the Starks. It is precisely that which has him concerned on Sansa’s behalf, and to a lesser extent Rickon’s; the details won’t be pretty.

“You can always leave, my girl. I’ll drive you home, we can go right now,” he says because he means it; as much as he wants to be here for Ric, he will never be able to just stand by watching as Sansa falls apart. He cannot let her be hurt, not when he can fix it, but she’s shaking her head _no_ even as he’s planning on how to tell Rickon and Shireen that they’re bailing.

“I can’t leave my brother. We have been in this together since the very beginning,” she says, and he sighs with a nod, remembering the last time he got between the two of them, the last time he thought he knew was best for her, and so he lets her go, watches as she leaves the bathroom to sit on a questionably cleaned bedspread, to sit and to watch this move of theirs play out.

“All right, everything’s set up,” says Pod, sitting back in his chair. He’s a mousey kind of guy, Sandor thinks. “I’m kind of excited,” he admits, smiling sheepishly to the strangers who stand or sit or mill about around him. “I’ve never gotten to use this kind of stuff before, but they were so excited down at the station when we said we’ve got a lead on a hit man. I mean, just think of it! We could take down an _assassin,_ Bree, I mean who knows how many people this guy has offed?”

“Pipe down, Pod,” Brienne says tiredly, pinching the bridge of her nose, and Rickon and Sansa both visibly blanch as they exchange a long look. “Have a little sensitivity, okay?”

“Oh, right. Jeez, I’m sorry guys, I wasn’t thinking. My bad,” he says, and Sandor thinks he looks so like a lost puppy that he’s surprised Margaery isn’t giving him a backrub right now.

“Skip it, it’s fine,” Rickon mutters, finally putting an end to his incessant pacing to sit with a heavy _whump_ on the bed by his sister, and Sansa puts her arm across his shoulders, and suddenly he looks very young when he tips his head to the side, resting it on her shoulder, letting his big sister card her fingers through his hair. Sandor feels like he is looking through a portal into the past when they were both just children, but then Rickon says “Goddammit, this is fucking nerve wracking,” and the illusion is gone.

“Hey mate, you doing all right?” Sandor says in a low voice as he sidles up to Bronn, glancing back to where Margaery and Brienne are talking because there’s no way Bronn would give an honest answer if it meant upsetting his woman. He can be a calloused idiot, will happily break someone’s kneecaps for the right price, but after spending nearly seven years with M, the last thing he’d do would be to hurt her.

Bronn stands with his arms folded across his chest, staring out of the window into the hotel parking lot, the black of the asphalt broken up with the dull yellow glow of streetlights dotted in regular intervals throughout the lot. They are in the wasted land of winding, connecting interstates, of exits and off ramps. It’s an ugly little spot for an ugly little task.

“Oh, sure, you know me,” Bronn says with a shrug. “Right as rain, come sun or snow.”

“That I do, which is why I’m asking. Rubbing elbows with thieves, liars and drunks is right up your alley, but I’ve never known you to shoot the shit with a murderer.”

“If you’re trying to say there are limits to my depravity then my feelings are hurt,” his friend says, and they share a halfhearted chuckle. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got the fuzz on my side for the first time in life, and Brienne says she can help me get my record cleared for complying or whatever. Aiding an investigation, whatever the hell it’s called. I’m going to be fine.”

“But it’s creepy as hell?”

“It’s creepy as hell,” Bronn mutters with a nod and a sigh. “I’d say you owe me one but M’s insisting I do this pro bono. She’s real taken by your girl, really wants to help her and her punk ass brother,” and Sandor smiles.

“Everyone is taken with Sansa,” he says.

“None worse than you, buddy. You’re hopeless for her,” and Sandor snorts with a shake of his head.

“Says the pot to the kettle,” and Bronn smirks succumbing to his own thoughts, turning from the window and flinging himself back onto the empty bed nearest them, and Sandor is left alone to stare out into the ugly parking lot.

 

Shireen has her head resting on Renly’s shoulder, and even though Bronn is there lounging on the other bed in the hotel room sprawled out as if he hasn’t a care in the world, has not yet left to take up his post, she cannot keep from glancing at the monitor, the grainy black and white room that is the mirror image of the room they’re in now. It’s empty, a ghost of a room, its fate and its future not yet played out, but somehow to Shireen it’s as if the turn of events have already happened, as if she only needs to stare at it long enough before it gives her the answers.

“Bronn, it’s time,” Pod says quietly, glancing to his wrist watch. It makes Shireen smile, to think of a young man still wearing a watch, and as if on cue, as if everyone read her mind, the rest of them pull out their smart phones to check the clock, all of them save Brienne who just stands there, tall and stoic and all-knowing.

“I feel like a movie star, ready for my debut,” Bronn says, and it’s bizarre how calm and cheerful he can be, even in a moment like this. True, he doesn’t know the victims and barely knows the mourners, but he stands with a stretch and a smile that seem more fitting for running out for ice cream and not sitting down with an assassin and a memorized script detailing the desire to murder his girlfriend.

“Do me proud honey,” Margaery says. “Make me sound really horrible, all right?”

“No lying necessary for that, darlin’,” he says, and she comes to him, winding her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. _Ah, there it is,_ Shireen thinks shrewdly, because as playful as they are with each other they do not normally kiss like this in front of others, mouths open with her hands in his short hair and his cupping her ass, kissing one another like he’s going off to war. _So,_ she thinks, _we’re_ all _nervous as whores in church._

“You know what to do,” Brienne says, walking with him to the door. “If you for any reason feel unsafe, tip over a beer bottle. I know we’re watching you and listening in, but there is nothing like a gut feeling to go by. I don’t care if it ruins the entire operation, we’re getting you out of there, okay?”

Bronn slides a glance to Rickon and Shireen tracks the movement; her boyfriend is a stone statue of determination. It’s hard to tell whether he’s is one of ice or fire, of cold revenge or hot rage, but whatever it is, Bronn recognizes it and nods at the same time that he shrugs.

“I’ll be fine, little lady,” he says, earning an eye roll out of Detective Tarth, who towers over him, who comes close to Sandor’s own height, “so long as I can hit him if he tries to hit me first.”

“Self-defense is fine, we’ll be taping it and it will prove you acted only to protect yourself. But remember, Pod and I are here, so there won’t be any need for it.”

Shireen doesn’t know much about hit men or assassins, but she knows plenty about Cersei. She thinks of playing at the Baratheons’ house when she was a child. Cersei fed her snacks after school a few times. Cersei hosted holiday meals there. Cersei killed her uncle and Rickon’s family. Shireen wishes Bronn had a weapon, because if a woman like Cersei can pull such a cruel stunt, what can a hit man do?

“Oh Jesus, there he goes,” Rickon says from the foot of her and Renly’s bed, his head lifting from Sansa’s shoulder, and she sits up like a shot, leaning forward to stare at the little monitor. Renly sits up with her.

“Was it always this nerve wracking, all the little intrigues y’all did?” Her uncle whispers in the otherwise silent room, as they all of them stand or sit rooted to their spots, watching the grainy image of Bronn cross the room and sit down on one of the beds in the room next door. He almost immediately gets up again, sits in the desk chair, identical to the one Pod sits in now, and then he stands once more, pacing with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.

Shireen thinks back to slinking around Cersei’s house, her insides a cold clamp of terror, her heart in her throat, fingers trembling as she punched out the alarm code once, twice, thrice before finally getting it, only to be shaken to the core by the ringing of the phone. She thinks of the panic roiling up when Rickon set Tywin’s office on fire, the dread and tragedy of Sandor carrying Sansa in the house, the nail-biting anxiety of watching Rickon disappear under the trees downtown to beat up Joff. She nods decisively.

“Yes. Worse, sometimes, considering I don’t currently feel like I’m about to pee my pants.”

“Well, if I think about it long enough, I guess I could manage it,” he says, but Margaery whips around, her blonde hair a fan in the air from the motion, and glares at Renly.

“Would you _be quiet_?” She snaps, and Renly holds his hands up in surrender before miming zipping his mouth shut. He shrugs mutely to Shireen who sighs and tucks her arm into her uncle’s, turning back to watch the screen.

There is the faintest of knocks from the speakers on either side of the monitor and Sansa gasps, her hand flying to her mouth, and Sandor, standing nearby, drifts closer to her so she is essentially flanked by her brother and her boyfriend. Bronn jumps like a cat at the sound and Margaery murmurs to herself, sidestepping closer to Brienne, who rests a hand on her shoulder, and they all of them freeze, a collective breath held in the backs of their throats, as the door opens and Bronn ushers in their hit man, who is the target tonight.

He is nothing like what Shireen imagined, and she blames movies and books for thinking he’d be strong, tall and dark, maybe not unlike Sandor, but this man is comically the opposite. He is medium height, nondescript save for his bald head and tubby body, although perhaps those are what make him so nondescript, so easily able to blend in to his surroundings, and suddenly Shireen feels foolish for thinking stereotypically. But then again, it means that as vengeful as she’s been lately, she still doesn’t have a brain for this sort of thing, and she snuggles closer to her uncle as they watch.

“Never done this before,” Bronn says, his cheerful voice clear as day through the speakers though the image is not so sharp, “so I’m not quite sure what to call you, but you can call me Bryan,” he says, and Shireen supposes it’s close enough to the real thing to come across as honest enough. Their target shakes Bronn’s outstretched hand.

“Evening, Bryan. You can call me Janos,” he says, and Rickon hisses in a breath to hear the name of his family’s murderer. She stretches out her leg, nudging his hip with the toe of her boot and he wordlessly reaches out, wrapping a hand around her ankle. His grip is tight but he runs his thumb along the leather over and over with gentle enough pressure, as if he is trying to uncover some comfort there.

“All right, Janos. Care for a beer?”

“Got anything stronger? It’s cold as a witch’s tit out there,” Janos says, sitting unceremoniously on the bed as he unzips his jacket.

“I’ve uh, yeah, man, I’ve got some scotch around here somewh- yeah, here,” Bronn says, reaching behind a six pack of beer on the dresser for the fifth of scotch. He disappears into the bathroom, presumably for a glass, and when he comes back, Shireen’s hunch is confirmed. This was as much as they’d hoped for, since liquor-loosened lips often sink ships, but it’s still surprising to her that he’s so cavalier during such serious negotiations, so willing to compromise himself. _If I killed people for a living I’d probably drink myself to death,_ she thinks, and then she thinks about Renly, slowly sinking himself into a stupor over the guilt of the Stark family’s demise, and suddenly this Janos whacking back a shot of liquor makes a little more sense.

“Now, I have to ask, Bryan,” Janos says, the slight emphasis on the name suggesting maybe he’s knows it’s a fake one. “Where did you hear about me? I’m solely word of mouth, and I always like to know.”

“Does the referral earn you extra hit points or something?” Bronn quips, and Shireen is worried he will anger their guest already, but Janos, who is holding out his glass for another shot, just laughs. The sound sends a chill up Shireen’s back, and beside her Renly shudders.

“No, but like I said, it’s good to keep tabs on who’s talking, and I am sure you can understand that, yeah?”

“Of course, it makes sense,” Bronn says, reaching for a beer and twisting the cap with his bare hand. He must be nervous, equipping himself already with the signal to send in the detectives if need be, and he takes a long swig before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He sits down at the little desk. “Her name’s Cersei. Cersei Lannister.”

“ _That_ cunt? _She’s_ the one who passed on the word? Jesus, will wonders never cease?” He mutters into his glass before knocking back the shot and then he sighs, and then he laughs. “She’s been a complete bitch over what she considered to be a botched hit, even though the bastard died in the end, just like I told her.”

A whimper fills the room and Sandor, Rickon and Shireen all look to Sansa, whose shoulders are shaking; Sandor sits down on the bed, his heavy frame depressing the mattress enough so even Shireen can feel it here on the opposite corner as him.

“Wait, you botched a hit? I was told you had a 100% success rate.”

“Well I do, don’t I? She had me take out her fat ass of a husband on some hunting trip, which was easy enough, and then she wanted me to kill the P.I. hired by some fag brother of uh, what’s his name. Yeah, Robert.”

“Robert who, Lannister? I didn’t know Cersei was even married. I wouldn’t have tried to fuck her if I knew that,” Bronn says, and Shireen has to wonder at his finesse, his sly way of getting Janos to blurt things out.

“Nah, Robert uh, uh, shit, what was it,” he says, snapping his fingers to jog his memory. “Bart- no, Baratheon! Yeah, God that guy was fat as a tick,” Janos says, and Shireen and Renly seethe in silence together; at one point their hands found one another and their fingers are laced together tight as a vise.

“That son of a bitch,” Renly mutters, and he sniffs, rubs his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

“So, what, if you killed him then you didn’t botch it. I don’t want this botched, okay, my girlfriend is real underhanded slut, and I want her out of my life.” Bronn swigs from his beer.

“That’s my man,” Margaery whispers, still clinging to Brienne’s side.

“No no no, and listen, hey, I didn’t fucking _botch_ anything, all right? I told you, man. Stark and his old lady died on the scene, and the kid died in the hospital. I made sure of it. I didn’t leave that goddamned hospital until it was declared, all right?”

Shireen’s covers her mouth with her hand, praying to any god that will listen to just make him shut up, because she can hear Sansa crying and can see Rickon is shaking from head to toe. But he doesn’t.

“I am nothing if not thorough, though I have half a mind to kill that cunt Cersei if she doesn’t pay me for the Stark hits. You know, Bryan, I’m so good now I don’t even have to do the triple tap anymore, okay?” Janos says, pointing his finger to his temple as if it were gun. “A single tap to Ned and to Cat, and I would have done the same to the kid but that slimy bastard tried to get away. Doesn’t matter, though; three bodies asked for, three bodies provided.  I mean, where’s the fucking problem, you know?”

 

Sansa is mid sob when Rickon leaps to his feet so suddenly she gasps, hastily wiping the tears from her face, and she is torn between staring at the screen and watching her brother, because he is not a shining example of an even temper, because he burns down buildings and beats people up, though she’s not sure she blames him for either.

“All right, so tell me what I need to do to off my girlfriend, Mary, and how I pay you. I assumed you’d take money first, but then this Cersei chick stiffed you, so what do I do, pay you now?”

“She paid half up front and half later, which is how I normally roll but since she fucking tried to pull some fine print sort of bullshit on me, I’m half inclined to say I need all the money, up front. Up close and personal,” Janos chuckles, leaning into the space between Bronn and him. Sansa cringes, looks over at Rickon in time to see him punch the wall between the room and the bathroom, leaving cracks in the wall, a smear of blood against the cream colored paint.

“ _Rickon_!” Sansa whispers right as Sandor mutters “Fucking Christ,” with his head in his hand, because at that moment Janos freezes on the monitor, looking over his shoulder.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Sounds like some lucky girl getting nailed,” Bronn says with a shrug and a laugh. “We gonna plan this or what?”

“Rickon, goddammit,” Margaery snaps, striding to where her brother stands and Sansa is surprised at her quick reflexes when she snags Rickon’s forearm before he can land another punch into the drywall. “If you fuck this up you’ll ruin any chance of nailing this bastard and sending Cersei to prison. That’s on you. _But,_ and I want you to listen very carefully here, if you fuck this up and get my man hurt, I will rip, your goddamn, balls off. Do you understand me?”

Rickon is a pillar of flame glaring furiously at Margaery, chest heaving from ill contained fury, but finally he tears himself free from her grasp, rubbing his knuckles in the palm of his other hand, and he stalks into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

“At least he didn’t slam it,” Pod says helpfully as he stands and produces a packet of Clorox wipes.

“Is that enough to arrest him?” Sansa asks, standing, watching as Pod wipes her brother’s blood off the wall.

“Yeah, and it’s enough to arrest Cersei, too. He dropped her name, confirmed both her maiden and married names, as well as your own family’s name. We’ve enough to get a warrant, to get our own hands on those emails.”

“What about Joff Lannister?” Margaery asks as she turns away from the wake of Rickon’s angry departure, walking back towards them with her arms crossed, and Sansa looks up at her gratefully. It was plenty seeing Joff humiliate himself, and without implicating Sandor for his attack it’s impossible trying to get him in for attempted rape, and the last thing she wants is something to happen to Sandor.

“Unless he’s somehow connected to this, I don’t know,” Brienne says doubtfully, but Margaery shrugs.

“He has roofies, a nice big Ziploc of them, and he’s Cersei’s son. I’m sure you can extend the warrant to his place under pretense of connections to his dad’s murder, and maybe with him in the news some other girls will come forward. I’m sure he’s done this before,” and Brienne nods to this, making hope, a bright, burning hope with dark wings, rise up in Sansa’s heart. _To see Joff prosecuted for this, oh, the luck and beauty of it all._

“All right, you guys, clear out. Pod and I’ll wait five minutes to give you time to get to the parking lot and then we’re going in for him. Pod, put a call into the station and get Snow to write up a warrant for Cersei. We can nab her tonight before there is any chance of her hearing about this. Janos could have texted her in the hotel room for all we know, considering his back is towards us.”

Shireen and Renly linger in the hallway, watching as Pod and Brienne gear up, leaving the monitor on the record the arrest, but Shireen comes forward when Sansa is about to knock on the bathroom door.

“Do you want me to stay? Like, help with him? I know how he gets,” she says, and Sansa smiles sadly, shaking her head, giving her a hug before knocking.

“Go away,” Rickon says, his voice wet and broken, boyish, prickly like a wounded animal from within the confines of the bathroom. It makes her straighten her spine, makes her buck up, suck it up, so Sansa sighs and turns back to Shireen.

“We started together, Rickon and me, so I think we need to finish it together, and I’ve got a good idea on how to do that. How about you and Ren go to our place? Maybe take Sandor there with you, and you guys can decompress a little. We’ll be there soon,” she says and Shireen nods, winding her scarf around her neck.

“Tell him I love him, okay?” she says, and she and Renly hurry down the hallway. Sansa is left standing with Sandor, who kisses her briefly, sweetly, his hand a heavy, warm reassurance on the back of her neck.

“Be safe, my girl. You Starks come up with some pretty intense ideas, if I know you at all.”

“It’s not too crazy, big man, it’s just um, you know, it’s closure. Something he and I really, really need.” Sandor nods, walking backwards down the hall away from her before finally turning to jog after Renly and Shireen.

“Come on, Ric, let me in. We have five minutes to get out of here, and we’ve already eaten up about three of them.”

Finally Rickon opens the door, and he looks as if he’s been crying too, and it makes her sad that despite what they’ve all gone through he still feels he has to hide his tears away from everyone else. Sansa pulls him in for a hug right there in the threshold of the bathroom and he clings to her so tightly she remembers the few times he’d come to her for comfort after a boyhood nightmare when she’d be studying in the kitchen, his hair stuck to the back of his neck, his Batman pajamas a soft fuzz against her cheek as she hugged him. _But it was too few times,_ she thinks as they run down the hallway, hand in hand. _I’ve got to start hugging him more. I_ will _hug him more._

“He killed them, he did it, he really did it, Sansa,” Rickon mumbles in the car as she drives them away from the Comfort Inn. He’s slumped against the passenger door, head pressed to the window though the glass must be freezing, and she has to ask him twice before he remembers to put on his seatbelt. “Can you believe that, just sitting there as he talks about it? Like he’s talking about a grocery list or a uh, you know, a trip to the Laundromat.”

“I know, bub. I know. It was, oh wow, I don’t even know how to explain it,” she says, and she trails off there because she might not know how to explain it but he’s someone for whom she needn’t bother trying, because whatever pain is in her heart is in his as well. She thinks of Arya and Bran, and for one of the first times she’s glad her other siblings weren’t here for all of this grief. It feels good on the justice side of it, but the other side of the coin is still raw and mournful, still scuffed over with heartache. _I need to call Arya. I need to email Bran. We need to see each other again._

After she gives him Shireen’s message they’re silent for a long time until she starts driving into Belle Meade, and while it could make sense if they were heading to Renly’s house, it doesn’t tonight, and suddenly Rickon sits up straight in his seat.

“Wait a minute, Sansa, where are we going?”

“Closure,” she says firmly. “I don’t care how long it takes, either,” she says, hurtling down Belle Meade Boulevard. “We’ll wait until we get it, because we deserve it. We need it.”

He is a rolling wave of expletives when she slows down for the turn onto Tyne, and he grips the door handle, knuckles likely white from the intensity with which he grabs it. “San, you gotta be fucking crazy.”

“No. I’m fucking mad as hell, and I want to see this bitch get shoved into a cop car,” Sansa says, a little more grit to her voice than before, and it distracts him for a moment as she parks two houses down from Cersei’s driveway and kills the engine. The idea struck her when Brienne told Margaery how they could arrest Cersei tonight; it seemed a pity that Janos’s downfall should go witnessed when he was only the hand listening to the brain. Sansa wants to see the puppet master go down, and she tells as much to Rickon as they sit in the car, hugging themselves against the chill that already starts to creep in from outside.

 

It’s only about fifteen minutes before two cop cars glide in near silence down Tyne, coming from the opposite direction as Sansa and he did, and Rickon is surprised, maybe a little disappointed, that they aren’t flashing their lights and blaring their sirens. But he supposes this is not your average neighborhood, not your average crime, and certainly not your average woman.

“Creep closer,” he says when the cops turn into the Lannister driveway, because now their view is blocked by the brick wall and all that damnable, hardy ivy. Sansa mutters to him but does as requested, curiosity clearly eating away at her as well, and they do a u-turn, drive forward with their headlights off, but still she refuses to park point blank across from the driveway, so finally Rickon just says _Fuck it,_ and hops out of the car, his sister hissing after him to get his skinny ass back there.

He stands at the very foot of her driveway, toes in line with the seam between the brick of her drive and the black tar of the street, hands jammed in his pockets, staring at the cop cars parked side by side, effectively blocking off any attempt to escape through the garage doors. The silence is heavy, almost claustrophobic though they are in a neighborhood of sprawling estates, golf clubs and lawns that can go on for acres, and it’s starting to seriously creep him out until he hears his sister’s door slam, feels her standing beside him a few beats later.

“You are such a little shit, you know that? Punching walls, jumping out of moving cars, just doing whatever you want. What’s wrong with you?”

“Why? Jealous?” It’s meant to be sarcastic but then she chuckles, dark and low and quiet, like the air all around them.

“A little bit, maybe,” she says, and he is about to joke with her when the front door opens with a bang and the snarl of a woman’s voice. There are four cops in total and two blonde haired people between them and the two blondes are putting up quite a fight. He can tell the woman from her long hair that moves around her like a nest of snakes, she is struggling that hard against her escorts. It makes Rickon think of Medusa.

“—And I will have you know, you bastards, that I _will_ call my lawyer, and he _will_ nail your asses to the wall for this. Get – no, how _dare_ you put me in handcuffs? How _dare_ you!”

“You’re resisting arrest, ma’am,” Rickon can just barely hear. “And I’m afraid if you don’t settle the fuck down right this instant, I’m going to have to get a little more persuasive. Pepper spray would ruin your pretty makeup, and I’m sure you’d hate that, judging by how much you’re wearing.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Sansa and he exchange dark little looks of glee to see her so put out. They’ve come around from the front yard towards the cars in the driveway, and their voices are much more clear now, their struggles that much more evident as Cersei is hauled between two policemen, while the other two play interference in order to keep a flapping, squawking Lancel away from their suspect.

“Detective Jon Snow, ma’am, as I’ve told you before. Now come on, watch your head, all right? I can tell you’re pretty intoxicated.” The struggles and the back talk send up constant puffs of white breath that light up in the spotlights above the garage doors, and it’s like watching the oddest sort of play on the coldest, strangest little stage. Suddenly Rickon wants to laugh.

“You know _nothing,_ you prick, she doesn’t drink and she is _innocent_! Cersei could never hurt a fly,” Lancel cries out as his arms are brought behind his back and cuffed together, in such distress over his girlfriend’s predicament that he ignores his own. At his ridiculous declaration both Rickon and Sansa burst out laughing, because nothing could be further from the truth.

The two cops flanking Cersei startle at the sound of laughter on this otherwise silent evening, and they freeze mid-struggle in getting Cersei into the back of their car, staring in mute surprise at Rickon and Sansa. His grip on his sister’s hand tightens, but neither of them move, neither of them flinch, neither of them waver even an inch, because right now, looking at Cersei in her downfall is exactly what they need. They look into the face of it and let it look back at them; they’ll decline going to court, to keep Sansa and Sandor safe, even himself safe if Joff is able to recognize him from such a brief encounter. But Cersei? They can look at her, they can taunt her, if only for one night. And much to his delight, and likely to Sansa’s, she is stunned, stands there staring at them with her mouth open, her cuffed hands clenched into fists at the small of her back, and then her jaw snaps shut to spit out words.

“Who the hell are you? Get out of here, this is private property!” Cersei screeches once she realizes that this most humiliating situation has witnesses. Rickon has never seen her in person before, only in ball gowns in the style sections of Nashville websites and at fancy parties immortalized in pictures from the newspaper style sections. He never knew laying his own eyes on her would be this fulfilling, and he squeezes Sansa’s hand in thanks.

“ _Fuck_ _you_ , Cersei Lannister!” Sansa shouts from his side, surprising the hell out of him, surprising another laugh out of him as well. It is unreal, the idea of standing here with her, hurling insults at the woman responsible for the diminished family, strange that he’s laughing instead of crying, but she was right, because it’s closure, it’s sealing and healing of old wounds. He bumps her with his shoulder.

“I guess you kind of do whatever the hell you want too, huh?” He whispers, and Sansa giggles like a girl, like an older, darker, wiser shade of the girl she used to be, and she squeezes his hand right back.

“That’s enough out of the peanut gallery,” Jon Snow says after giving them a long study, and Rickon wonders if Brienne told him about them. He adjusts his grip on Cersei’s upper arm, and he sounds as weary as an old man though he can’t be much older than Sansa. “Go home and stop interfering with the law, you hear?” And then, as if he is just sick of all this bullshit, detective Snow plunks his hand down on the crown of Cersei’s head and pushes her down so roughly she has little else where to go but where he wants her to, and then she’s doubled over and toppling into the back of the cop car.

“There was one debt you forgot to pay,” Rickon yells before the door closes, as Sansa pulls him back across the street, and he shouts it loud enough to be heard, “but I’m going to make sure you pay it back for the rest of your pathetic fucking life, you bitch!”

“Come on, bub,” Sansa says, and they turn and run back to their car, to get out of there before the cops wrangle Lancel in the other car and get on the road. “Let’s go home,” she says once they’re on the road, safely obscure on Hillsboro Road with the remnants of Sunday evening drivers.

“Home,” Rickon says, and he thinks of the people waiting for them, the people he calls family now when it’s just his inner voice, when he’s curled around Shireen at night or sharing beers with Sandor; when he’s watching television or holding hands with his sister as they do now; when he’s sitting with a weepy, hungover Renly the night after he helped him shower. It has been one hell of a night, full of wicked people and dark truths, it has been a tumultuous, traumatic four months, but there have also been good things, bright sweet things like love and friendship, the growth of family like a new bloom on a preexisting bush, and he must remind himself that without these four months he is not sure he’d have any of that, is not sure he’d have a _home,_ because now Rickon understands that home means people he loves.

“Yeah,” he says after a while. “Yeah, San, let’s go home,” and his sister glances at him with a smile, her face lit up red and green from the passing traffic lights of Green Hills, and she looks like Christmas to him.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Between Us And Them - Ulrich Schnauss


	21. Afterlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have to be honest here. I am not sure if I should be ashamed or proud of this chapter because it is just that over the top. BUT I DON'T WANT TO SPOIL ANYTHING, so here goes.
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115235455083/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-21-afterlife)

“No, don’t cut it like- yeah, like that. No, like at an angle,” Sansa laughs, wiping her hands on her apron before coming to Shireen’s rescue, or rather, the baguette’s rescue before it is hacked to pieces. It’s just past sunset on Christmas Eve and they’re expecting guests tonight, Bronn, Margaery and her older brother Loras. Renly is already here, banging away on the piano like he’s holding a grudge against it, though Sansa has to admit he does a mean “Great Balls of Fire.”

“I told you I’m no good in this room,” Shireen says, backing away from the cutting board, sipping her glass of champagne. “Renly’d be better off in here than on that goddamn piano. He’s played this song like five times in a row already.”

“We’ll force him to do Christmas carols when everyone gets here,” Sansa says with an easy smile, though she is a flurry of anticipation and impatience. Sandor has had to work all day since Christmas Eve is on a Wednesday this year, and she has missed him profoundly, has felt the empty ache since he kissed her forehead and her cheekbone and her mouth before creeping from the bedroom before the sun even rose. She laid in the warmth of his bed, the tangle of flannel and quilt until noon, full of mooning, pining sighs and bitten lip before finally hauling herself up and out of his lair, determined to keep busy until he got off work.

And busy has she been; the place is decorated like a department store with garland and lights strung up along the mantle, with nutcrackers and little reindeer standing at attention on all the various tabletops throughout the house. The Christmas tree they all picked out a week ago is wedged in the corner by the piano, and though they swore a solemn oath to not buy presents for anyone there is a scattering of gifts beneath it, and they all of them pointed fingers and called each other liars. She had Rickon pin mistletoe in every doorway, much to his wicked delight, and the moment Renly and Shireen walked through the door he dragged her to one such spot without even bothering to say hello to either Baratheon.

He’s keeping Renly company now as they wait for Sandor and the rest of the guests, and if Sansa wasn’t so busy preparing the hors d’oeuvres she’d be biting her fingernails, she is that excited to see him. _And Bronn and M, too,_ she thinks firmly. _And her brother, it will be nice to make a new friend,_ but they are all shadows when it comes to him, to how wonderful it has been these past three weeks, having left behind the revenge and the schemes and the crazy ideas in that hotel room. It’s been _life_ and they’ve been _living_ it, and it’s like a veil has been lifted, and the mourning and hurt and anger, while still there, are finally lowering their heads, allowing other things to take over, things shaped like hope and laughter and lightness.

Shireen may not know a thing about cooking or even slicing bread for bruschetta, but she does know how to arrange a cheese platter with a certain artistic flair, and she writes the names of each cheese in elegant script with chalk on the slate. “Renly did teach me _some_ stuff,” she says before carrying the cheeseboard out into the dining room, where garland is strung up in the chandelier and tealights flicker in rows like little soldiers along the two windowsills in the room. “Rickon, get off me,” Sansa can hear her giggle over the music as  Renly is now playing a slow, rolling melody instead of a repeat of Jerry Lee Lewis, and she’s laughing at the sounds of love as she spoons chopped tomato and basil on the olive oil-brushed bread. She’s pleased with the Christmassy colors, and once they’re in the oven she permits herself to lick her fingers before washing her hands.

It’s a nice sight, as it’s been these past few weeks, to see how much lighter her brother has been since they put everything behind them. They get snippets here and there from Brienne through Margaery; the so called anonymous tip of Renly’s did indeed unearth curious things, and though there was no major insurance fraud there were several transactions between Cersei and Tywin over the past few months, and they add almost perfectly to the amount of life insurance left after Robert Baratheon’s untimely death, now a confessed murder. Given the additional confession of Janos Slynt to the Stark family murders, Cersei has been apparently busy this holiday season, frantically shuffling through lawyers in a desperate attempt to haggle for a shorter sentence than life.

 _Life._ Sansa smiles, because it’s a word that has always meant different things to Starks than to Lannisters, but the tables have since turned, and it’s Starks celebrating the beauty of that word instead of mourning the loss of it.

There is the sound of the door opening and she freezes, worried it’s their guests; she hastily unties her apron and smoothes her hair away from her face, until she hears Rickon say _Hey, Sandor, how they hanging,_ and then she’s grinning, throwing the apron to the kitchen floor as she runs out through the dining room, nearly bumping her hip into her brother before turning and flinging herself into Sandor’s arms. He grunts happily and lifts her up, kissing her as he does so, and she’s grateful for the stretch to her leggings when she wraps her legs around him.

“How’s that for a welcome,” she hears Renly say, and she gives a breathless little laugh between kisses. He smells like winter, snow and chill and the wool of his coat, and always, always and forever that woodsy smell she’s been drawn to since before she even realized it. He tastes like the coffee she knows he drinks on the way home to wake himself up after long hours of physical labor, and the warmth of it is rich on his tongue when he slides it into her mouth. There is the way his arms brace against her and hold her up, one across her lower back, the other up the length of her spine between her shoulder blades, so familiar now she can feel the pressure of them even when they are apart.

“Hey there, big man,” she whispers when she pulls back, and he’s smiling at her, a cheerfully tired man with his arms full of her, gray eyes lit up beneath the black of his brow and the black of his pulled back hair. He is backlit from the strands upon strands of Christmas lights that make the entire front of the house look like it’s made out of gingerbread and magic, and there is something about this sight of him that makes her heart melt like a pan of snow over a fire. “I missed you, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“Hey yourself, little bird,” he says back, making her heart leap to hear again this new nickname of hers, one he gave her only two nights ago after listening to her play and sing for the first time. “If you keep your legs around me like that for much longer you’re going to tell how much _I’ve_ missed _you,_ ” he rumbles before catching her mouth with another kiss, and suddenly Sansa hates that they’re having a Christmas party tonight.

“Hands off the sister, buddy, I’m trying to eat here,” Rickon calls out, and his words are the needle to the little balloon of isolation they’re in, and she can tell Sandor is reluctant to loosen his arms around her, and she’s as clumsy as a baby deer when she extricates herself from their entanglement.

“Go on, love, I’m just going to shower and I’ll be out in a flash,” he says, lifting her chin with his forefinger to press one last kiss to her mouth, and she sighs, rests a hand on his scarred cheek before he turns to wash up, watches as he fills the hallway with his height and his breadth before turning back to the others. Renly’s grinning at her, half turned away from the piano, and her cheeks ignite with the heat of a powerful blush under his salacious scrutiny.

“Jesus, you two are disgusting,” Rickon says, and she looks in the dining room to where her brother is grinning, sitting on the table beside the spread of food, his arm slung around Shireen’s shoulders. His girlfriend rolls her eyes at this hypocrisy as she contemplates the piece of gouda in her hand before popping it her mouth, and Sansa is about to give him an earful when the kitchen timer goes off.

“Dammit, my bruschetta,” she says, sticking her tongue out at Rickon as she heads for the kitchen. Shireen, always sharp when it comes to other people, ducks in anticipation and squirms free of Rickon’s embrace, darting to the side.

“Hey, don’t show that filthy thing to me, I just saw what you do with it,” he says and when she tries to slap his shoulder he’s ready for her, and Sansa shrieks when her brother chases her into the kitchen.

“The original Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” Shireen shouts after them.

 

Rickon is bouncing on the balls of his feet to keep warm as he smokes a cigarette on the porch, and the place is lit up with a hundred thousand mini Christmas lights, and he feels like he’s standing inside a box of Fruity Pebbles. The little yard was blank canvas of snowfall all day but now it’s a painting of light and warmth, and even to Rickon’s relatively unartistic eye, it’s beautiful. It makes him think of how gray the past four months have been, how empty his and Sansa’s lives were to be this full, this rich and full of color, and he grins as he exhales a lungful of smoke.

It’s snowing again by the time he finishes his smoke, and the car that pulls up catches him just before he’s about to hurry his ass into the house, but because it’s the holidays he doesn’t, just shoves his bare hands into his jean pocket as he jogs down the stairs towards what he now recognizes as Bronn’s Chevy. It’s a tan SUV and looks almost golden in the streetlight, and he watches his new friends disembark, stepping out into this wonderland as if they were little figurines inside a snow globe. It’s been one of the coldest winters he can remember, and he’s happy because of it. The softness and cleanness of the snow is a fresh start, and it makes him think of maybe trying community college, of the possibility a new year has for him, for all of them.

“Merry Christmas, rotten little thing,” M says when she steps out of the passenger side and slams the door. She’s wearing a faux fur coat and high heels, her blonde hair shining like a halo from the streetlights, her face a pretty pink glow from the Christmas lights.

“Same to you, Charlie’s Angel,” Rickon says, giving her fuzzy lapel a flick when she comes over for a hug, shivering despite the glass of bubbly he’s already had, and Margaery laughs.

“Hear that, baby? I think I want you to start calling me that,” she tells Bronn once he and her brother make it to where they stand on the walkway. “Oh, hey, Rickon, this is my darling brother, Loras. Loras, this is Rickon. He’s Sansa’s brother, and his girlfriend is Shireen, Renly’s niece,” and it is everything, _everything_ Rickon has in him to not throw his head back and laugh at this most obvious of set ups.

“Hey,” he says instead, pulling a hand from his pocket and holding it out. Loras is shorter than him but not by much, and from Rickon’s limited ability with these sorts of things, he’s a good looking guy, clean cut with curly hair and a pair of black rimmed glasses. He wants to say something like _Be nice to him, he’s been through some shit,_ thinks about puffing up his chest and asking what his intentions are with Renly Baratheon, but instead he just shakes Loras’s hand and says “Merry Christmas. Come on in and let me get you a drink.”

“Merry Christmas right back, thanks for inviting me,” Loras says with an easy smile, and Margaery is beaming with pride beneath the drape of Bronn’s arm, “but I don’t drink, actually,” and Rickon wants to pump his fist in the air.

“Well then come on in at the very least,” he says, leading the way up the steps and into the glow of the porch. He claps Bronn on the shoulder in greeting as he pulls open the wooden door, and once more he has to repress a snort of laughter when, from the very doorway Loras stage whispers to his sister.

“ _That’s_ him? Holy shit,” he mutters, and Rickon gives Renly a look of frank appraisal, sitting there beside Sansa, playing The Christmas Song as she sings as perfectly as she did back in high school. He’s wearing a navy blue sweater over a gray long sleeved button down, his dark hair a meticulous tousle, his elegant hands moving with ease over the ivories. He looks a hell of a lot better than he did that one morning a few weeks ago. “And you’re sure he’s gay?”

“Who, Ren?” Rickon says over his shoulder, unable to repress his grin. “Oh yeah, he’s gay as the night is long.”

“Thank you, baby Jesus,” Loras murmurs, and before Bronn has Margaery’s coat off Loras is already drifting towards the piano as he unwinds the scarf from around his neck, and there is a sudden twang of the piano when Renly mangles a chord. He deftly picks up where he left off, but there is no more singing, only the muffled murmur of shy introductions that are wrought with the electricity that comes with love at first sight, and it makes him wonder where Shireen is.

“Well, I think that’s a good sign,” Margaery says smugly, kissing Bronn’s cheek before heading for the spread of food on the dining room table, calling out _Merry Christmas_ to both Sandor and Sansa.

“Glad that’s working out,” Bronn says after tossing M’s coat over the little table by the door. “She’s been nattering on and on about this match ever since he didn’t melt to the floor when she smiled at him.”

“Quite the confident woman you have there,” Rickon says, and Bronn laughs.

“What the hell do you think ‘con’ stands for, buddy?” he says before heading towards Sandor on the sofa in front of the fire.

“Confidence, right?” Shireen says, coming up to his side from the hallway bathroom, handing him his flute of champagne with a fresh coat of lipstick on.

“Show off,” Rickon mutters against the rim of his glass, and Shireen shrugs before sliding her arm around his hips, and together they stand there by the door, watching Sansa deftly slide off the bench to get Loras something to drink, to refill Renly’s tonic and lime, and if either man notice her absence they make no show of it. Bronn and Sandor sit with whiskies on the sofa while Margaery walks to and fro in front of the fire, gazing at Stark family photos on the mantle, and Rickon wonders how long it will be before there are pictures of Sansa and Sandor up there, of Shireen and him, of the four of them and of the future, and something about that idea makes his heart pound, and he drains the rest of his champagne.

“This is nice,” Shireen says, tipping her head against his chest, and he lifts his arm so she can snug in closer. “This is real nice. I think Renly had a heart attack when Loras walked up to him.”

“I heard,” he chuckles, and Shireen laughs too.

“You know, he’s never once gone out with a guy,” she says quietly, and there’s a bit of sorrow to her voice, sadness he can understand. “I really hope this works out. He’s been so lonely, and he deserves a good man. Loras, you know, he seems really sweet. I talked with him, he teaches fencing of all damned things, and he fosters old cats and dogs. Can you believe that? I mean, what the hell, Saint Loras. Anyways, he’s like a perfect southern gentleman, something Ren really needs.”

“You know Bran’s gay, right?” he says suddenly, glancing down to her, and he laughs to see her jaw drop in shock. He kisses her temple, desperate for her mouth if it weren’t for that damned red lipstick.

“Rickon! I had no idea! Why didn’t you tell me?” And now it’s his turn to shrug.

“Honestly, I just don’t think about it. It’s like, me telling you that he loves the color blue, that he eats tofu or reads too fucking much,” he says.

“To be fair you talk about how he reads too much all the damned time,” she points out.

“Okay, well, you know what I mean,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Anyways, Bran had a hard time coming out. He already had that accident to deal with, the cane, the painful walking,” he says, drifting off into the past, and suddenly his heart _aches_ because he misses his surviving brother. His annoying, _stupid_ smart brother who had so much shit dealt to him, who still aced every class and exam, who despite the horrific pain of his disability still had strength to walk tall and come out not to just his loud, chaotic family, but to the world as well. “Anyways he uh, he met this guy in school, Jojen. They’re in France together now, actually. He uh,” Rickon’s voice cracks like a boy’s and he clears his throat, buying for time to calm down, already.

“Honey, you okay?”

“Yeah, I ah, I’m just, fuck, man, I guess I miss my brother,” he says, and she squeezes him with that arm around his middle, and gets on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his jaw, a kiss that makes him close his eyes. “Anyways, Bran did it, and he and Jojen are still together, so you know, lightning can strike twice, is what I’m trying to say. Soul mates or whatever the hell is going on over there,” he says, jerking his chin towards Renly and Loras, who have since abandoned the piano to stand in the entryway of the dining room, both of them talking animatedly as they nurse their mocktails and smile at each other. It looks like a magazine layout, these two sharply dressed men, framed in candlelight and tiers of finger foods and cheeses, crackers and bowls of fruit, with two centerpieces Sansa put together with holly boughs and some plant Rickon can’t recognize.

“Hey, Lor, y’all are standing under the mistletoe,” Margaery calls out from the fireplace, glass of wine in hand, a foxy grin on her face. “Just sayin’,” she adds, and finally Rickon does throw his head back and laugh to see Renly’s mouth hanging open as he stares at M.

“Standing there like a trout is not the holiday tradition for mistletoe, either,” Bronn says over his shoulder, and now Loras and Renly are standing side by side in embarrassed camaraderie, both of them beet red and speechless.

“And it’s _not_ how you celebrate the Christmas spirit,” Shireen says with a laugh, and now Renly is glaring at her.

“Oh, fuck it,” Loras says, leaning towards the dining room table to set down his drink, and when Ren turns towards him, half a question on his lips, Loras is waiting for him. He takes his face in his two hands and holds him still before kissing him soundly on the mouth, and the house is very still and very quiet for the few beats of this new thing, this lovely newness that makes Rickon grin, but when Renly lifts a hand to the back of Loras’s neck, the place erupts with cheers and laughter so loud Rickon’s ears are ringing like church bells.

 

Shireen’s rummaging for the other pre-prepared veggie tray in the fridge when she hears someone approach from behind her and she stands and turn swiftly, fully prepared to beat off a handsy boyfriend, only to find a rather breathless looking uncle standing in the doorway with stars in his eyes and a boyish grin on his mouth.

“Well, well, well,” she grins, closing the refrigerator door with her hip. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or shall I say, what the Loras let out of his clutches?”

“Shut your mouth, you horrible child, and let a man pretend he’s falling in love.”

The party has been in full swing for a couple of hours now, and it’s Sansa now at the piano while she and Margaery and Bronn sing Jingle Bells, Bronn belting out the lyrics in a terrifically off key baritone, and since that kiss under the mistletoe Renly and Loras have spent the evening talking; they talked standing by the Christmas tree, eating olives; they talked sitting, Ren on the coffee table and Loras in one of the little armchairs, hunched towards each other conspiratorially; they talked outside on the porch while Renly smoked a cigar and she and Rickon threw snowballs at each other and kissed under the cloud-choked sky; they chatted in the kitchen where Shireen interrupted them fetching herself another glass of champagne. The kiss opened up a floodgate of sharing and getting to know each other, and while Shireen is well acquainted these days of how kisses can leave you in a giddy rush, she’s pretty sure the starry-eyed look Renly’s got is as much from the conversation and connection as much as it was to kiss a boy for what she suspects is the first time.

“Who says it’s pretend, Renly? Miracles happen around the holidays, sometimes. Don’t sell yourself short,” she says, setting the veggie tray on the counter beside him so she can peel off the saran wrap, but before she has a chance he’s swept her up in a dance around the kitchen, one that reminds her of standing on his feet when she was a little kid so he could whirl her around her mom and dad’s living room.

“You’re a good girl, you know that? I owe everything to you, little Shireen,” he says, and suddenly she wants to cry. “I love you like you were my own, and I don’t say that trying to replace Stannis, but,” he says, and she cuts him off.

“I love you like you were my dad, too,” she mumbles against the cashmere of his sweater, tucking her head against his chest. “Just because he’ll always be my dad doesn’t mean you aren’t my dad too,” and Renly chuckles, kisses the top of her head.

“You were always pretty smart, sweetheart. Probably too much for your own damned good,” and then he stops wheeling her around the room to hug her. “Thanks for everything, though. I don’t- I mean, without you- I think I’m finally at a place where I can talk to a nice person and not feel like a fraud, not feel like a shadow or a scam. So, you know, sugar, thank you so much,” and Shireen knows he’s saying thank you for dumping all his liquor down the drain, for sleeping next to him whenever she’s at home without Rickon, for holding his hand as he cries when they watch television. All the things she’s owed him throughout the years, all the things she’s making up for.

“I should say the same to you, pal,” she says, wiping at her face, sniffling conspicuously, and he pulls apart to look down at her with confusion. “Hey, don’t think I haven’t noticed or appreciated how much you’ve doted on me throughout the past several years. You think I’d snag a guy like Rickon without being loved by you, without knowing love?”

“Oh yeah, that whippersnapper! I’m proud you landed the ex-convict who burns buildings to the ground,” and he laughs when Shireen swats his arm. “You misunderstand, hon, I mean it. I _am_ proud, he’s a good guy,” Renly says, nodding behind her towards the doorway, and when Shireen whirls around, Rickon is standing in the doorway, leaning against it with the press of his shoulder. She panics a moment, terrified he heard the exchange and is feeling judged, but then a slow grin slides into place, and she’s standing there in the middle of the kitchen, smiling like a school girl in front of her crush. _But he_ is _my crush. He’s been my crush for months._

“Loras was hoping you’d play some more songs, since Sansa can’t seem to keep herself out of Sandor’s lap these days,” Rickon says to Renly, though his eyes never leave her, and she thinks about how disposable her paper dolls used to be, wonders if she is one too and he can just simply set her on fire from the heat of his gaze.

“I know my cue,” Renly says, and Shireen doesn’t miss how he runs his hands through his hair, down the front of his shirt to smooth away the invisible rumples before straightening his spine and leaving the room.

“Hi,” she says to the floor, suddenly girlish under the weight of Rickon’s look, though she’s seen him naked, has felt the shudder of his shoulders when he’s cried in his sleep. “I was just um, the veggie tray,” she says, pointing to her left where it idles on the counter beneath its layer of cellophane.

“Fuck the veggie tray,” he says, and she laughs, looking up at him finally, and _boom_ , there he is right in front of her as if he’s been there the entire time. “Hey, honey,” he says, and when he lifts his hands to push his fingers through her hair she notes the missing glint of gold on his right index finger.

“Hey, what happened to your ring? Oh my God, did you _lose_ your dad’s _ring_?”

“Ah,” he says, and there is the oddest look on his face, like he’s going to tell her he’s won the lottery or has stolen it, and once upon a time the goody-two-shoes in her would immediately say which version of his story she’d want, but since knowing him the line has since been blurred. Lucky man or a thief, ordinary boy or reckless wonder, he’s hers and she’s enchanted. Rickon dips his hand into his pocket and pulls out Ned Stark’s gold wedding band, and he holds it between them, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. She stares at it with a frown, not understanding, sees how the overhead light catches the gold and sets it on fire.

“’Ah,’ what?” She shakes her head, confused.

“I want you to have this,” he says, and her eyes widen when she looks up at him. His hair has only gotten longer and fuller since she met him, and it’s a thicket of dark auburn, so ruddy red it’s nearly brown, and the less obedient lengths of it hang in his face; the sweeter, boyish curls still cling to his neck. The blue of his eyes is lighter than hers will ever be, and while it can play at gray or almost green, tonight it is the blue of a spring sky or a robin’s egg, and it’s warm, and she’s lost for a minute in them before she shakes herself free.

“Wait, wh- what are you talking about?” And now he’s grinning.

“Marry me,” he says, and now she’s laughing because she’s so confused and on fire and encased in this feeling of bubbles that has nothing to do with the champagne she’s had tonight. He’s a wide smile, a smile of kisses that she’s felt pressed into the flesh of her shoulder, of her inner thigh, of her lower lip, and _goddamn, it’s hot as hell in here._ Shireen bites her lips into her mouth before laughing outright, loud and ringing.

“You’re drunk,” she finally says breathlessly, stalling for more time to think, to comprehend, and he laughs. How he can laugh, how this can be so easy for him is a mystery to her, when her heart is racing like this, when he just casually says words like _Marry me_ as easily as he declares the weather outside.

“No I’m not,” he grins and it feels like the ground is falling away from beneath her feet, because she knows he isn’t, and she sees the serious layer beneath the happy one.

“Why do you want to marry _me_ , Rickon, of all people, we’ve, I mean my God, Ric, we’ve barely known each other four months, let alone, like, I mean, oh my God, what?”

Rickon shrugs, and he’s still grinning, but now his head is tipped to the side as he looks at her. He holds the wedding band up to one eye and closes the other, and looks at her through the ring as if it were a telescope.

“I don’t want to be with anyone else. Isn’t that the point? If you find who you want, you tell them you want it forever. So, you know. I want you forever.”

“But,” she says, and then she’s laughing all over again, holding her hand out with her palm facing the ceiling and his grin cracks even wider when he places the band in the center of her hand.

“Come on, woman, marry me. Put on a black dress and those boots of yours and let me take you to Vegas. They’ve got drive thru chapels there, you know. Marry me on the back of my bike, and then we can see every corner of this country.”

“You think I’m riding all the way to Vegas on the back of a motorcycle?” She thinks of the bugs hitting the windshield of her Jeep when she cruises down the interstate to cross Nashville, and the idea of bugs in her hair and against the visor of her helmet all the way to Nevada makes her shudder.

“It’ll be pretty boring getting married here in town, but I’ll do it if that’s what you want,” he says. Rickon closes his free hand over the ring, over her open hand, and there it roosts in the warmth of their palms. It’s safe and sweet there, and her heart aches for the chance to feel that way from head to toe, to be safe and warm in the heart and the vows of the wildest, craziest man she’s ever met, the man for whom she has no doubts.

“Hey now, Rickon, I never said yes,” she smiles, looking down at their hands. When she looks up he’s grinning, and finally he lifts his hand to look at the gold band resting in the center of her hand, and with seeming boredom he puts his fingertip inside the ring, swirling it in a circle against the lines of her palm.

“Yeah, but you never said no, either.”

 

“Hey, you guys, come here,” Sandor says, standing in front of the television. It’s the ten o’clock news and he’s just caught a blurb of the oncoming news stories. They’ve been doing this for every news segment since the bust on Janos Slynt happened, hoping to find it on the news, but they’ve always come away empty handed.

Not tonight, they won’t.

 He’s got his bourbon in one hand and the remote in the other, and soon the little TV room is crowded to the max as Margaery and Bronn manage to stop slow dancing with each other in order to come, as Sansa rushes in from the kitchen with a glass of wine, and Rickon and Shireen emerge with a slam and a gust of snow flurries from the front porch, followed by Loras and Renly. Sandor knocks back the rest of his drink and jerks his head impatiently towards the TV screen.

“Hurry up before you miss it,” he says, and together they stand in a crowd watching the local news, Sansa tucked against his side where she belongs, her hand a feather light weight against the center of his chest.

_Thank you, Jennifer, for that wonderful segment on Christmas wishes coming true._

_My pleasure, Bob, but unfortunately, Christmas wishes have run dry for one family here in Nashville, who usually spend the holiday season doling them out in the way of charity functions. It’s a complete 180 for the Lannisters this Christmas season. We have just received word that Cersei Lannister, the would be heir and future CEO of Lannister Realty, Nashville’s largest commercial real estate corporation, has been as of today officially charged with the solicitation to commit murder in the first degree._

_The Lannisters, once considered one of Nashville’s golden families due to their generous donations to various charities and the arts, have seen their fair share of scandal these past few weeks. Tywin Lannister, patriarch to the entire Lannister fortune, has been spending more time under interrogation this holiday season than he has at the office, though that may be due to the fact that his office is a pile of charred rubble._

_Despite Twyin and Cersei’s legal troubles, Lannister Realty should have passed down to the man waiting for the title. However, Joff Lannister, Cersei’s son, is in some hot water of his own after a video went viral that proved he not only had roofies but had taken one in a somewhat embarrassing turn of events – now, Bob, stop laughing – and so now he has been under some aggressive questioning himself when a baggie of the date rape drug was discovered two weeks ago when the police carried out a search warrant of all the Lannister properties in town. Since that discovery, not one but_ four _women have come forward, all of them with the intent to press charges of sexual assault._

_Safe to say, Nashville: if you’re a Lannister this Christmas, you’re going to find coal in your stocking. Back to you, Bob._

There is a long, drawn out silence after he turns off the television. In the few minutes it took for the news segment to play out, complete with a brief clip of Joff’s YouTube video, footage of Tywin Lannister fighting through a crowd on the way to his car outside of what looks to be his residence, and a quick shot of a very agitated Cersei being hauled into the downtown police station, Sandor sunk down to sit on the coffee table, and Sansa is perched on one of his thighs. Rickon and Shireen are off to the side in the entryway, and he assumes the rest of them are sitting on the sofa or standing behind it, but he has eyes only for Sansa, and he looks up at her face as this information sinks in, settles in, as its implications and promises take root.

She is staring at the television screen though it’s black, and he can see her jaw work as she chews the inside of her cheek, and just as he lifts his hand to touch her face, her hair, there is a piggish snort of laughter from behind them. Sandor is ready to shoot them all a withering glare, but apparently the interruption, the crack in the silence is all she needs, because Sansa bursts out laughing, head tipped back, eyes closed, and she clings with an arm to his shoulders to keep herself from slipping off his lap.

 Slowly but surely the others start laughing as well, and the air slowly swells from the sounds of it, from the talking over one another to ask  _Did you see his face_ and  _Cersei looked absolutely wrecked_ and  _I wish they’d shown the ending of Joff’s video._ Margaery passes her phone around to show off the dozen or more still photos she got of Joff lying prone on the club floor, and then it’s done. It’s gone and it’s over and Renly is back at the piano, Margaery and Shireen are sneaking off to find tequila to do shots, and it’s Sansa and him standing in the TV room, half ensconced in darkness. He thinks about how often he’s found himself in this room with her, how it had been agonizing to be so close and yet so far away, but now they are kissing close, always, and even now he’s got his arm around her waist when they stand.

“You all right? Honestly?” He gets his fingers in her hair now, and she tips her head back, following the light pressure of his touch, smiling up to him with an amused sigh.

“I’m all right. No, actually, I’m great, and I’ll tell you why,” she says, lifting her arms and wrapping them around his neck. “Because when you and I walk out of this room, I’m leaving it all behind. All of them, all of  _it,_  and I’m not looking back. I just want to look forward, you know?”

“Fair enough,” he grins, lowering his head for a kiss and not because there is mistletoe strung up everywhere, but because he wants to and he can. He slings his arm over her shoulders, pulling her against him as they walk out of the room, leaving the pain behind them, and he must speak up over the noises of revelry. “Speaking of looking forward, it occurred to me that I’ve never taken you out on a date before, Sansa Stark.”

“You mean this pig hasn’t taken you out?” Rickon grins as he crosses their path on his way outside, an unlit cigarette bobbing in his mouth, and Sandor shoves him, making him laugh, making him slosh half of his shot before he upends it into his mouth. “Hey now, I have every right to get on your case on my big sister’s behalf,” he says, breath a bloom of tequila, kissing Sansa on the cheek after pulling himself back together.

“Jeez, bub, I’m flattered, believe me,” she says with a smile and wave of her hand in front of her nose. But she ruffles her brother’s hair just the same, and Rickon grins openly, happily to her before turning to the door.

“Hey buddy, bum me one of those,” Bronn says, still sucking on a lime wedge as he emerges from the kitchen, and in a classic move he simply tucks the sucked on wedge in his coat pocket instead of finding a garbage can. Rickon waves him on through and they disappear into the chill outside.

“I’m serious,” Sandor says once they’re alone, or relatively so. Loras and Renly are still side by side at the piano, just a handful of feet away, but are so ensconced in one another that a hurricane could tear the house apart before they’d notice. Sandor thinks back to their Thanksgiving conversation outside, remembers the dark sorrow in Renly’s eyes, and he’s happy for the old coot. He looks back down to Sansa. “I know we’ve put the cart before the horse, love, but I’d do  _some_ things right, and at the very least I could take you to dinner.”

“ _Oh_ , well,” she says with a shrug, drifting away from him towards the dining room and like a shadow or a love struck puppy he follows her, trying to memorize the sway of her hips, the graceful unbending of her arm as she plucks a grape from the bowl of fruit on the table. Sansa turns and offers him the grape, and Sandor frowns with a bemused smile as he takes it from her. There is a thrum of arousal like a musical chord being plucked on an instrument when she closes her eyes and opens her mouth, and Sandor sighs, grumbles deep his chest as he steps into her space and carefully tucks the grape between her teeth, and his eyes slide shut when her lips close around the tip of his forefinger.

“There,” she says between a couple of chews, and she’s grinning that cat with cream smile when he opens his eyes, and he remembers the last time she started a sentence with that word, still naked and pressed to his chest, and he wonders if she is trying to provoke him into making a scene tonight.

“’There,’ what?” he asks, voice rough, throat dry.

“You’ve gone and fed me,” she says, “so no pressure on the date front, Sandor. Besides, I don’t much mind the cart before the horse. God knows it’s been fun,” she grins, and he huffs a laugh at that wolfish look on her face. “And you know, I’ve been thinking,” she trails off, glances through to the kitchen where Sandor can see Margaery and Shireen sitting on the kitchen counter, giggling like school girls, and Shireen is showing something shimmery and golden to M, sitting there on her palm. He looks back to his woman and there is a  _look_  there, one he doesn’t comprehend save for the intensity of it.

“What’s going on, my girl?” What’s going on in that clever brain of yours?” Sandor lightly taps his finger on her forehead. “Just what have you been thinking, hmm?” he murmurs, stepping closer,  _kissing close,_  he thinks, their chests nearly flush to one another. There is a moment of silence as she twists a piece of hair around her finger, but after a fortifying swallow of cabernet, she looks up at him.

“I want to have your babies,” she blurts, gasping with a laugh and clapping her hand over her mouth as if she cannot believe she had the courage to say the words, and Sandor shakes his head, misunderstanding.  _I want you, baby,_  perhaps that’s what she meant. Because while he’s finally getting used to Sansa telling him she loves him this is far too much, and he wonders how much wine she’s had, and suddenly he wishes he’d had more himself. He drains the rest of her glass before setting it, empty, beside the tea lights and camembert.

“You- I don’t- what are you  _on_  about,” he stammers, but she’s recovered herself, is nodding her head emphatically even as he still shakes his in disbelief, and they look like two drunk mimes trying to have a conversation.  _Babies?!_

“I do, Sandor, I do. I thought, when you first told me about your um, your you-know-what, that I was okay with it. I figured, you know, I had wanted kids about a hundred years ago when everything was still how it was, and that because it’s all different now, I would be fine. But I’m not. I  _do_ want babies.”

“Sansa, I- if you want children, I’m not- I can’t- then I’m not the man for you,” he says, and his heart  _hurts_  because why the  _fuck_  did he do that? Why did he make such a decision?  _Because I was heading to prison. Because I am forty four and no woman ever loved me before, let alone wanted my babies. It all came too late._

“Oh yes you are, buster, because it’s  _your_  babies I want, and I realize that now. You and I, we’re  _everything_  to me, Sandor. If it’s not you then it’s no one. And as for the you-know-what,” she says, and he interrupts her, because he is getting frustrated.

“Vasectomy, Sansa. You can say it. I got a fucking vasectomy, and they’re kind of permanent.”

“Whatever,” she says, waving off his irritation as if he were a dandelion and not a looming, scarred up old jailbird, and it nearly makes him laugh. “I did research, Sandor, a lot of it, and I have a whole slew of information now about reversing it. You can get it  _reversed,_ Sandor, and I um, well. I waited a long time to meet you, and I don’t want to waste any more of it, not when I know what I want. Do um, do  _you_  want that? With me?”

Her eyes are wide, a darker blue tonight from the wine and the champagne and the candles and Christmas lights everywhere, but nothing can take the brightness from them, and she looks up at him with such love and hope that it takes his breath away, and for the moment, his words. He sighs and folds her into his arms against his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head, wondering at how the fates have toyed with him his whole life, how if only he’d waited a year, just a year, he’d not be having this conversation.  _Babies,_  he thinks, and there is a flash, a vividly searing image in his mind of a child on his knee, of how the weight of an infant might feel in his arms, and Sandor realizes he’s not held a baby since he still had a sister that roamed this earth.

“Of course I do, Sansa, of course I want that. And I told you once I would do anything for you,” he says finally, drawing back a ways so he can look down at her as they speak.  _As we discuss having children for God’s sake. Never taken her to the movies, and now she wants my kids, and now I’m desperate to have hers._

“I remember,” she says, no small amount of triumph in her voice, and now he does laugh, truly, before sighing and stroking her hair with his hand. It’s well and good to build castles in the sky, but there are truths, hard ones that have to be examined.

“But what if it doesn’t work, Sansa? What if it’s been too long? You’ll be sitting there wanting children, an entire life that I can’t give you.”

“I researched  _that_  too, and since you don’t have a criminal record involving hurting children it’s entirely possible.”

“What’s possible?” He is sad, sweetly sad, and could kick himself for getting the procedure, the bloody stupid vasectomy, and thinks of the advice he gave Renly, wishing someone had been there to give him those same words about a hundred years ago.

“Foster care. Adoption. Working with kids, starting a home. This place has been packed with kids before, we could do it again, you and I.”

“Looks like you’ve got everything figured out, then, huh?” he asks, and she grins with a shrug, having the good grace, always the good grace with her, to look somewhat sheepish.

 “I was going to ask you to move your stuff into my room too, but I figured one thing at a time,” and the laugh he barks out nearly echoes in the small dining room. Shireen and Margaery briefly look up, craning their necks to try and see into the dining room. When he glances their way he can see it’s a man’s gold ring in Shireen’s hand and he recognizes it, and he doesn’t give a shit if it’s stealing ideas or stealing thunder.

“There is  _one_  thing you didn’t figure out, little bird,” he murmurs, gently tugging her right arm from around his torso. She goes willingly, frowning at him, and he’s proud of himself for thinking of something she hasn’t yet, for getting to surprise her for once since she is forever surprising him. He pauses, and for a split second he thinks he’s jumping the gun, he thinks he’s moving far too quickly, but some things tend to make sense regardless of how nonsensical they are, and so he moves, his fingertips finding the ring on her right hand, and she gasps when he gently pulls it from her finger. “I’d move this to your left hand, if I could,” he says, voice barely above a whisper, and tears spring to her eyes though she is smiling and laughing.

Renly starts that damnable Jerry Lee Lewis song again, and soon there’s the bang of the front door as Rickon and Bronn come in, cold from the snow and warm from the liquor, loud because of both, perhaps, and when they invade the kitchen there are squeals and shrieks and expletives, the sound of a bottle knocking over, but Sandor hears none of it, not really, because all he  _really_  hears is Sansa say  _Yes._

 

 

Chapter title taken from Afterlife - Ingrid Michaelson


	22. Wonderful Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bliss. More bliss. Bliss.
> 
>  
> 
> [Picset](http://jillypups.tumblr.com/post/115240984878/the-unpaid-debt-chapter-22-wonderful-unknown)

January, 2015

 

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything? Like, more ice, or a beer or something?” She’s trying her best not to wring her hands and fret but he looks so pitiful sitting there on the sofa with a bag of ice between his legs. Sandor heaves a sigh and looks up from the television screen at her.

“More ice _and_ a beer,” he says with as much dignity as he can muster, and Sansa kisses his cheek, runs her hand down the back of his neck, nuzzling him with her nose before she moves to stand. He turns his head to kiss her back in full and she’s delighted because he’s been somewhat closed off since they came home earlier that afternoon, but when her mouth parts he jerks his head back. “No tongue, for the love of God, Sansa,” he says, and she gets off the sofa and hurries into the kitchen to hide the grin on her face.

He was true to his word, and now he’s suffering through the first day of recovery after the surgery, and while he’s brave and does not complain, he is also _grouchy_ , far more than his normal demeanor. Rickon basically gave up trying the first short-tempered hour back home and has gone to stay over at Shireen’s, and so the house is quiet, save for the beat ‘em up, blow ‘em up movie he’s sinking his secretive feelings into.

She grabs a beer and another prepared freezer bag full of ice cubes, tucking the latter under her arm to pour herself a glass of wine. Sansa bites her lip with a smile to think that soon, if she’s lucky, she won’t be able to drink alcohol anymore. The doctor said everything went without a hitch, and though he did say there are chances it won’t work he seemed perfectly, cheerfully optimistic that it will. It’s been an impossibility to keep the idea out of her head, someday having kids together, and though she feels guilty for being so head in the clouds while he’s suffering the painful aftermath of the procedure, she just can’t help herself.

“Here, big man,” she says, gingerly setting the bag of ice on his knee, wary to touch him so close to ground zero, and he grunts his thank you when she hands him his beer. She’s turned in towards him, a leg tucked under her and an elbow resting on the top of the sofa cushion, watching as he watches his movie, and the urge to touch him is powerful, but she’s hesitant because of his mood. It makes her fret, and she sips her white wine thoughtfully before leaning over to set it on the coffee table.

“Sandor?” She hates how thin her voice sounds, but she’s seen him in pain before, the night he broke through Joff’s door, coming home after work stiff and sore or sometimes injured from an accident on the job site. He is never this moody, never this short with her; others maybe, but never her, and that makes her suspicious.

“Yes, love?” he says, glancing from the screen to her as he swigs from his beer. The ‘love’ makes her smile a bit.

“You’re not um, do you wish you hadn’t gone through with this?”

“Sansa,” he says, tone reluctant, the sounds of her name drawn out as if he is asking her not to ask him, and now she’s worried.

“You have to be honest with me. If you didn’t want this, if you weren’t sure you shouldn’t have done it,” she says, and he switches off the television. The light coming in from the windows is gray and cheerless, and it’s dark in the room save for the two lamps on either side of the sofa, and while there’s no more snow there’s sleet and freezing rain coming down around them, and in that brief moment of silence she can hear it on the windows. It felt cozy before but now it makes her feel watery. He turns to her best as he can, and his wince and flinch at the movement makes her frown in sympathy.

“Believe me, my girl, when I tell you how happy I am to do it. But also you have to understand that there’s a chance nothing will come of this. I- it would kill me to see you devastated, Sansa, to see you get your hopes dashed. I know how much you want this,” he says, and she could kick herself, because since Christmas she’s been going on and on about how exciting this is, how wonderful it will be, and she is forced to marvel at his patience with her. Only together a handful of months and she’s already freaking out about babies. Suddenly she feels stupid.

“Do you think we’re taking things too far too fast?” she asks, and he chuckles, runs his fingers through her hair.

“We have moved faster than I ever thought possible, but that’s less to do with the natural flow of things and more to do with my disbelief over finding myself in your bed, let alone you wanting me there,” and now she scoffs.

“But what about—”

“Sansa, I _do_ want this. I’ve thought about it likely as much as you have. You’ve put the idea in my head and now it won’t leave, so don’t think I don’t want this. I’d not let them slice my balls open if that were the case,” he grins, laughing when she smacks his arm. “Just promise me it won’t completely tear you apart if nothing comes of it, all right, little bird?”

He adjusts himself, keeping the expletives to a minimum, and once he’s settled he lifts his arm in a silent beckon for her and she comes to him, nestling herself as carefully as possible against the warmth and breadth of his side, sipping her wine as he plays with her hair, and just before he turns the television back on she smiles.

“I don’t have to promise any such thing, because one way or another it will all work out. I’ve got you here, don’t I? A girl this lucky, she doesn’t run out of that kind of luck,” and he huffs at that, and they let the evening slide into place around them, the globes of light on either side of them soon becoming the only source of light save for the television, and aside from changing his ice and ordering takeout, they do not move from one another’s sides, and that’s just how Sansa likes it these days.

 

May 2015

 

“If you move your foot one more goddamn time, I’m going to paint your whole foot in, in uh,” he pauses, peering at the name of the polish on the bottom of the bottle, “’Red Hot Rio,’ so stay still.” He glares at her from the bottom of the bed where he is sprawled like a giant housecat, one leg dangling off the edge, his face inches from her freshly scrubbed feet as he paints them. He does a good job since this is the third or fourth time he’s done it as a result of losing one bet or another, and she glances up at him, watching how he bites his lip in concentration, a lock of hair hanging in his eyes as he completes his task. Shireen grins and does her best to stop wiggling though it’s nearly impossible with how ticklish she is, especially in the arches of her foot where he’s grasping her in a desperate attempt to get her to stop moving. 

He lost no such bet this go round and it makes her realize that he must get a kick out of doing it because aside from touching up her makeup there’s nothing much else keeping her from painting them herself. So she uses the time wisely and goes over her eyeliner once more, blinking into her compact mirror, but the sight of him, the feather light way he touches her, his proud grunt of pride and satisfaction when he finishes the first five toes are all too distracting, and she closes the mirror to gaze on him.

Rickon has asked her to marry him about a dozen times, and while she knows full well she’ll meet him at the end of the aisle one day, it’s too much _fun_ with him, with his father’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck, with the anticipation and dizzy thrill that it still lives there, just beyond the horizon. He asked on New Year’s Eve, he asked on Valentine’s Day, but she thinks her favorite was when he asked her on President’s Day with a follow up warning that no means yes when it comes to proposals of marriage. She’d smiled and kissed him, pulled him into her bed with the well-worn promise that soon they would and so for nearly six months he’s contented himself with this, which in turn makes her think he’s likely having a lot of fun too.

“Are you ready to be a best man today, honey?” She asks when he’s finished, and is blowing on her drying nail polish. He slaps her calf as a signal that she’s free to get up and he stands at the foot of his bed, sweeping his hands down the front of his button down shirt.

“Yep. You ready to be maid of honor?” Shireen nods and grins as he helps her to her feet, and she lifts her toes up, walking on her heels to keep the carpet pile away from her half dried polish.

“I’ve never been anyone’s best friend, let alone maid of honor," she says as she carefully makes her way downstairs.

“Hey, you’re _my_ best friend,” he says, and she glances up over her shoulder at him. He’s almost disgustingly handsome in his shirt and jacket, hair recently cut though it still sticks up on all ends, hands in the pockets of his slacks. It makes her pause on the stairs, and she thinks _Yes, next time he asks me, the very next time, I’m going to say yes._ “What? What’re you lookin’ at?”

“Nothing, baby,” she grins. “You got the rings?”

“Yeah, I’ve got the rings. Although I can’t help but point out that it was my idea first, getting married,” he says, taking her by the nape of the neck once they’re in the hallway. “I’ll hear ‘I do’ out of you one of these days,” he murmurs before kissing her, and she rises up on her Red Hot Rio tiptoes, and she thinks _Yes, you will._

 

They are neither of them religious, and the only thing they both seem insistent on is being married with only their closest friends, so it is a courthouse wedding, and Sansa looks like she stepped from the pages of a magazine from the 1950s. Sandor doesn’t have the vocabulary to express it with words but he has eyes, and thinks he won’t ever need pictures to jog his memory, even a hundred years from now. It’s satiny white and bells out from her hips but not to the floor, and he can see her white shoes peeking out from beneath a hem that only goes to her shins, and the sleeves aren’t really sleeves but still cling to the caps of her shoulders anyways, and he is besotted.

Her hair is another story, an intricacy of coils and loops and braids, with real flowers dotted throughout, and while Shireen has proven herself very handy with hair, he’s fairly certain this is the job of a professional. Sansa’s eyes are bright, face pale save for the high spots of color on her cheekbones, and she is quite simply radiant. Sandor is grateful for the repeat-after-me style of wedding vows, because there is no way he could remember them, let alone remember his own last name at this point.

“Hi,” she whispers when they come together in front of the judge.

“Hey, little bird,” he murmurs, and she breaks into so brilliant a smile it makes him smile back. She bites her lip and glances to where Renly and Loras stand with Margaery and Bronn, and where her brother Bran stands, ever defiant in his condition, his right hand gripping the curve of his cane, his left clasped in the hand of his partner, Jojen. Bran smiles warmly when his sister looks his way, and Sandor is once more impressed at how quickly he and Sansa put aside their differences, is _reasonably_ certain Rickon will get there some day. The youngest Stark walks up with Shireen and together the stand beside him and Sansa, and once they’re in place, the judge clears his throat and begins the ceremony.

Though he helped pick which vows they decided to say, he cannot help himself and his mind wanders to when he first met her, to when he first lifted her from the sofa and carried her to bed before leaving, to that horrible night he carried her, sobbing and bleeding, to the bed where he stayed. It was a strange and winding path that has led him here with her, with Sansa in a white dress and flowers in her hair, telling him she will have him and hold him forever, until death do they part.

“And you, Sandor?” the judge asks, and Sandor swallows, shaking himself from his thoughts, focuses on Sansa and speaks from the heart.

“I Sandor,” he says, and the judge prompts him gently through the vows, “take you Sansa to be my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward until death do us part,” he says, and it’s a real thing, watching his words light up her eyes, and he thinks he will hear those vows every time she smiles at him, every time her fingers run down his arm when she passes by him.

Rickon nudges him, hands him Catelyn’s wedding ring, and Sandor is able to push it into place where it will stay for the rest of  their lives, making good on a promise made months ago on Christmas Eve. Sansa turns to Shireen with her hand outstretched, anticipating the simple ring they picked out for him at a thrift store, because as Sandor told her, there is no need to spend a lot of money on a ring when the true value is what it represents. But his eyebrows shoot up and Sansa gasps when Shireen places Ned’s gold band in the center of Sansa’s palm.

“Shir,” Sansa protests feebly, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and she’s breathless and shocked. Sandor turns to look at Rickon, who grins, though he’s wistful in the eyes.

“Those rings belong with each other, man,” he says with a little shrug, and Sandor puts his hand on his mate’s shoulder.

“But, what about Shireen, you guys are basically engaged, aren’t you? You gave her this ring,” he says, and even Shireen has tears in her eyes.

“He’s right, you two. Besides, if I know him at all, he’ll get me another one pretty quickly,” she says, and the judge clears his throat again, eager to get to the two dozen other couples waiting to get married, and Sansa slides Ned’s ring onto his finger with trembling hands.

“With the power vested in me by the state of Tennessee, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” he says with a smile, and he takes his woman, his little bird, his _wife,_ into his hands, cupping her lovely face, running his thumbs across her cheekbones as she smiles at him so wonderfully.

“Mine,” his whispers before kissing her amidst the sound of their friends and family laughing and clapping, Rickon saying something inappropriate as Renly laughs, and though he’s never been a man to wear jewelry, has never in his life worn a ring, the feeling of the gold around his finger is a pleasing one, and he’s fiercely proud to wear it, this wedding band of his.

It is a perfect fit.

 

August 2015

 

It is Rickon’s wedding day, or rather, the afternoon after his wedding, and he is soaking wet, standing in his bare feet, grinning like an idiot. She finally said yes and then she said _I do,_ and they’re going to be with each other for the rest of their lives. It makes him feel giddy and alive, makes him feel like he could jump off of the earth and land on the moon in one jump, but for now he’s got to focus on jumping off this tree, because he’s pulling a Robb right now, standing up on the huge trunk that arches, and then flattens out, over the Harpeth river.

Renly got ordained online so he could be the one to marry them, and though he wanted Las Vegas, he supposes getting married in his swimming trunks is a close second to the bright lights and big city. She married him in a black bikini with her sunglasses on, and they stood in the pebbly shallows of the river with their hands clasped and their friends all around them while Renly went on and on about love and loyalty, about the luck of soul mates, all while gazing serenely at Loras who sat on the river bank, and he is pretty sure there’ll be one more wedding before they close out the year.

“Hurry up, asshole, I want to go next!” Bronn shouts from below, where he treads water a few lengths down the river. This is the wedding reception he and Shireen wanted, and it’s everything he could have hoped for.

“Seriously, I’m sick of staring at your pasty scrawny body,” Margary shouts, and Shireen laughs and tells her to keep her eyes off of her husband, and Rickon’s heart pounds to realize that he’s her husband, and it’s the most powerful, intoxicating feeling he’s ever known.

“All right fine, hold your horses,” he says, and he adjusts his wet-handed grip on the bicycle handlebars. His sister and Sandor are sitting on the hood of the 4Runner, heads bent together as they whisper back and forth to one another, and Loras and Renly are upstream, basking in the late summer sun. Margaery and Bronn are kissing each other in the water but it’s to Shireen he looks. She’s standing on the opposite bank, has her hands on her hips and is grinning up at him, and when she sees him looking at her she mouths _I love you_ and he mouths it back.

“I wish you guys could have met her,” he whispers to the leaves on the trees, to the ripple of river and the dapple of sun. “You would have loved her, so I’ll just love her more to make up for it,” and then with a battle cry Rickon launches himself off the tree and swings wide over the water before letting go, and when his head breaks the surface of the water Shireen is already there waiting for him, winding her slippery arms around him and kissing him with everything she’s got.

 

November 2015

 

“I still cannot believe it,” he says, and she smiles to hear the wonder in his voice, sucks in a breath when he kisses her stomach. They are stretched out in bed, naked and sweating though it’s cold outside, and he has just made exquisite love to her after she told him. He is on his side, is scooted down so he can kiss and stroke and stare at her belly She has never felt so adored, never felt so worshipped, and he treats her like a queen every day of their lives.

“Believe it, papa,” she says, and he huffs a laugh, his soft Scottish tumble of a laugh that makes her smile as frequently as it makes her wet, and she closes her eyes to revel in the sound of it, in the way it gusts across her skin, making goose bumps crop up all along her ribs.

“I don’t think I will ever get used to being called that,” he murmurs, kissing her again, and the flick of his tongue makes her hips tilt, makes her card her fingers through his hair. “How far along are you, again?”

“Eight weeks,” she says happily, because she is pregnant with his baby and because he’s kissing his way up her body, and the hungry part of her hopes he’s coming to slip inside her again. “Only thirty two to go.”

“Thirty two weeks,” he marvels, pulling her onto her side and then on top of him, and she goes willingly, eagerly, straddling him and sitting up to gaze down at him. He is wonderment and disbelief, cannot stop brushing his fingers across her stomach. “Thirty two weeks and there’s going to be a baby, Sansa. You’ll be a mother. The loveliest mother,” he says, sighing when she leans down to kiss him, swearing when there’s a knock on the door.

“Goddammit,” he mutters, and she can tell why he’s irritated, if the press of his erection has anything to do with it, and she laughs when he slaps her hip and sits up. “Go on love, get in and I’ll shoo them away,” he says, and she kisses him hard, presses her breasts against him to remind him that he better hurry back, and he shimmies into his track pants, adjusting himself with a smoldering look in her direction before padding down the hallway to the front door.

Sansa watches him go with a grin, because he fills the hall with his height and his broad shoulders, because she can’t get enough of him no matter how the days go by, and because he is her man and is the father of her baby. Her eyes close and her hands drift down to her stomach once she is snug under the covers, and honestly she cannot believe it either, cannot believe her luck and her love and her happiness after everything that’s happened.

“Holy shit,” says a familiar voice from the front of the house, and Sansa’s eyes fly open when she hears it. “I mean, I knew you were a big guy from the pictures San sent me but I had no idea you were _this_ fucking huge,” and she can hear Sandor snort in reply. “This is Gendry. Gendry, this is Sandor, my brother in law, I guess.”

“Aye, and the father of your niece or nephew,” he grunts, and Arya shrieks. There is the thud of something heavy hitting the floor, a suitcase or something similar, and Sansa has barely enough time to wrap herself in a bathrobe before her sister comes tearing down the hallway and into the bedroom, and she _oofs_ when Arya tackles her so hard they collapse in a heap on the bed. The feeling of her little sister in her arms is a potent one, and there’s crying and laughing, there’s Sandor and Gendry standing in the doorway looking amused, and it’s home. It’s all home, to Sansa, and it’s all she’s ever wanted, and it’s all she’ll ever need.

 

 

Chapter title taken from Wonderful Unknown - Ingrid Michaelson because SOBBING INTENSIFIES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS, WHO COMMENTED ON THIS, WHO GOT INVESTED IN THIS. I loved every freaking minute of sharing this with you guys. I'm so, so sad to see it end but I think they're all in good hands now, because they've got each other, and I'm in good hands too because y'all are so fucking fantastic.


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